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.

Delhi’s 4 Indians and 3 Foreigners to be retained for 2011.

Now it’s becoming increasingly likely that the older teams ( including our beloved Daredevils) will be allowed to retain 4 Indian and 3 foreign players for the 2011 season . This also means that some of the arguments and selections made in one of our previous posts now become irrelevant. Never mind. We will re-plan for 2011 based on the new set of circumstances.

First a disclaimer. We are going to make our picks based on the performance of the players in the IPL, with larger weights assigned to the performances in India. After all future editions are also going to be played on the Indian wickets.  We are not going to be buoyed by the performance of any player in the other formats of the game. This has to be done objectively. We need to do a lot better in 2011.

First the 4 Indian players.

Virender Sehwag is an absolute certainty. The other can’t miss is Amit Mishra. The two have been our best batsman and best bowler over the last two editions respectively. That leaves two spots.

The team has three international players – Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik and Ashish Nehra and picking two of them seems to be the obvious choice. But at the same time, the precocious talent of Umesh Yadav cannot be ignored.

In terms of past performance alone, Nehra and Karthik should be retained but we will also have to consider the foreign players that will be retained and how easily replaceable a player is ( meaning are there enough similar players available).

By that argument, retaining Karthik becomes a necessity. It will be most difficult to find a good wicket keeper batsman. Almost all the good ones are already taken. The dearth is evident from the fact that Mumbai haven’t been able to find a good glove man. The availability of the Australians, Tim Paine and Brad Haddin is also a  big question mark.

Quality Indian pacers are also a rare breed. There is absolutely no one to step into Nehra’s shoes. Losing Nehra will break the formidable opening pair of Nehra and Nannes. This pair has been one of the biggest pluses for Delhi in the last two editions.

That will mean that we will lose Gambhir and Umesh Yadav, unless we can successfully bid for them.  Replacing them will be relatively easier than replacing Nehra and Karthik. Steady batsmen and medium pacers are a fairly abundant species. Moreover, Gambhir is on an expensive contract and excluding him will free up a large amount of cap space as well. This should be sufficient to get a top batsman.

Now for the 3 foreign players

Dirk Nannes has to be retained. Period. Will not even bother arguing his case.

That means at this stage we have one batsman, one wicket-keeper batsman and three bowlers.  So, we will try filling up the remaining two slots with batmen or all-rounders. The options, though are fairly limited.   Based on past performance, the choice is between Paul Collingwood, David Warner, Daniel Vettori and Farvez Maharoof. Others like AB de Villiers, Tillekratne Dilshan and Andrew McDonald have simply been too disappointing.

Daniel Vettori should get the nod; quite simply because he is the best T-20 spinner in the world.  Delhi should also be looking for a new captain (after the disappointing leadership of Gautam Gambhir) and Vettori is well suited for the job.

The final slot is a throw-up between Collingwood and Warner. There is little to choose between the two. Collingwood can fill  the crucial number six  position, whereas Warner has the makings of  a T-20 legend. And both won games for the Daredevils with the bat.

I will finally go with Warner. The prospect of Sehwag and Warner opening together is too tantalizing to pass.

So our final list is

Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Karthik, Amit Mishra, Ashish Nehra, David Warner, Daniel Vettori and Dirk Nannes.

Hopefully, they will form the core of a great Daredevils team in IPL 2011.

What the Delhi Daredevils need to do for next year?

The easiest way to figure this out is to simply look at all things that went wrong in IPL3.

Batting

Collective Failure

First and foremost the batting which let us down time and time again, especially when chasing.

That the Delhi team has just one batsman in the top 20 run getters is clearly indicative of the collective failure. Out of the 4 semi-finalists, Chennai had 4 batsmen in the top 20, while the other 3 sides had three each.

AB de Villiers and Tillekratne Dilshan

Amongst the batsmen, the biggest disappointments were AB de Villiers, Tillekratne Dilshan and the various domestic players who were tried in the number six position.

After failing in the first edition in India, Dilshan and de Villiers had impressed in South Africa. Back in India, their form nosedived horrendously, pointing perhaps to an inability to adapt to Indian conditions. Future editions are going to be played in India only and Delhi cannot afford to have international batsmen who struggle on the slow sub-continent pitches. The South African has been known to struggle against spinners and was all at sea in this year’s IPL. On the other hand, Tillekratne is not known to have any such weaknesses and his struggles can probably be attributed to a temporary loss in form. Taking that into account, Delhi should persist with the Sri Lankan and find a replacement for de Villiers.

Lacking another quality Indian batsman

The form of the domestic batsman was also a concern and needs to be addressed. Mithun Manhas has been a dutiful servant of Delhi cricket but he is limited and cannot fill the crucial number six position. Amongst the others, Kedar Jadhav played one good innings while Yogesh Nagar never looked like he belonged to this level.

Delhi’s shortage of quality domestic batsmen is of their own doing. In the last two years, they have shipped out Shikhar Dhawan and Manoj Tiwary – two players who have great domestic records and have been India probables – but have never replaced them with a batsman of the same ability. The lack of another quality Indian batsman also means that there is no one worthy enough to replace the trio of Sehwag, Gambhir or Karthik, if one of them is injured or out of form.

While finding the batsman will be a priority, it won’t be easy; especially given that there will be two more teams in 2011 and everyone will be chasing the available players. Delhi will have to target the out of contract players aggressively; try convincing someone like Virat Kohli to return home or offer someone like Abhishek Nayar (on the bench mostly for Mumbai) a chance to play regularly. Failing all of that, they will simply have to try and unearth another gem from somewhere – like they did with Umesh Yadav this year.

All –rounders

Technically, the Daredevils had 5 international and one domestic all-rounder in their ranks but didn’t have a single one who could be called world class; capable of winning games with bat or bowl – someone in the same category as a Kieron Pollard, Andrew Symonds, Albie Morkel, Shane Watson, Jacques Kallis, Angelo Mathews or Jacob Oram. Almost all the other sides have one and Delhi could definitely do with one. The best place to look for one would be in Australia or South Africa. Getting someone like Mitchell Jonson could be a real coup. Moises Henriques has the potential to be one and the Daredevils will be well advised to hold onto him.

Bowling

Delhi’s brightest spot in this year’s IPL. The fast bowling department is well-staffed with a pair of internationals and two young Indians with a bright future. In Mishra and Vettori, Delhi have two wonderful spin bowlers but both of the them take the ball away from right-handers and Delhi will need someone who can bring it in – an off-spinner that is. They have Sehwag and Dilshan but a specialist is required. This will give the side enough flexibility to tackle any situation and any opposition. The best man to fit the bill would be England’s Graeme Swann, who is a capable lower order batsman as well.

Outlook

The Delhi Daredevils already has a very fine squad. In spite of the poor form of their batsman, they very nearly made the semi-finals for the third time running. There are a few gaps, however and a few additions could transform the side from a good to a great one. We trust that the team management would have taken note and will do the needful.