Figuring out the playing eleven for the Daredevils

Now that most of the available players have been snapped up, and only a handful of decent uncapped players remain up for grabs, we have a fair idea of the squads. We can now engage ourselves in figuring out the likely playing elevens. So without much ado, lets start with our favorite team – the Delhi Daredevils.

The playing eleven needs to have 7 Indian players. As of now, the Delhi squad has 9 such players. Out of them, we can leave out Unmukt Chand for now. We sincerely hope that our team doesn’t get into a situation where they need to play him.

That leaves 8 players fighting for 7 place – hardly a difficult task for the coach. Owing to the paucity of batsmen in the side, it is likely that one of the bowlers will face the cut. That means one amongst the lot of Umesh Yadav, Agarkar, Dinda and Vikas Mishra. Irfan could join the group if he struggles with the bat. The team management would dread such a scenario, having shelled out 1.9 million dollars for the Baroda all-rounder, and for their sake as well as ours, we hope that Irfan re-discovers his touch.

In addition to the 3 bowlers, the other Indian players would be Sehwag, Venugopal Rao, Naman Ojha and Irfan Pathan.

We now need 3 batsmen and one bowler from the foreign contingent. Any of these places could also be take by one of the all- rounders.

If Vikas Mishra doesn’t play then Roelof Van Der Merwe has a good chance of getting picked. He can bowl his full quota of overs and is a floater in the batting order who can be counted upon to get his runs quickly.

Morne Morkel is an automatic selection as the best bowler in the squad and of the best in the world on current form. He is also a handy batsman who could add meat to the lower order.

The team now has five bowlers – Morkel, Mishra or Van Der Merwe, Pathan and 2 out of Yadav, Dinda and Agarkar. Ideally, the team should have one more all-rounder to give the captain an additional bowling option in case one of the bowlers gets taken apart.

The all rounders place is a toss up between James Hopes and Andrew McDonald. Hopes has the edge both as a batsman and a bowler.

David Warner, Aaron Finch, Travis Birt and Colin Ingram will vie for the two remaining places in the side. Warner looks a certainty based on past performances.

The combination will change based on the opponents, the nature of the pitch and the form of the players.

But on paper, the most likely eleven for the Daredevils should look something like this.

Sehwag, Warner, Naman Ojha, Birt/Finch/Ingram, Venugopal Rao, James Hopes/Van Der Merwe, Pathan, Morkel, Umesh Yadav, Dinda, Agarkar/Mishra.

The holes in the team become apparent once we look at the likely playing eleven. The team could do well with an upgrade for Venugopal Rao and Agarkar/Mishra. If we can manage to do that, we will have a very competitive side which take on the best sides.

We hope the team management can find these upgrades from amongst the remaining uncapped players.