2016 IPL Survival Guide

It’s here again. It’s unavoidable. No sooner had the World T20 finished than this year’s IPL commenced. Although it’s weird that some saw the former as an appetiser for the latter, a quick look at the star-studded rosters reveals why: all the best T20 players in world, plus Farhaan Behardien, are there. If you love big crowds, a carnival atmosphere, razzmatazz, and commentators going off their collective faces, you’ll be in heaven.

The IPL is an anathema to some but I actually got into it last year. It helped that I was being paid to cover it, but I probably would’ve watched some of it anyway. I find the whole thing – the culture, the passion (despite the artificial nature of the franchises) plus the somewhat surreal nature of the cricket – awkwardly captivating.

The IPL couldn’t be further from the traditional English concept of cricket – that gentlemanly and rather quaint summer sport. The whole thing is slightly bizarre and baffling to English audiences: from the absurdly named teams (the newly formed Rising Pune Supergiants sound like a villain from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) to the high-stakes auction.

The money involved is also quite vulgar. And I’m not just talking about legitimate money either. The IPL is great if you love a spot of big hitting, but it’s also great if you love a bit of spot fixing. Two of last year’s top four teams, the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals, aren’t featuring this year because they’ve been banned for corruption. They’ve been replaced by the Gujarat Lions and the aforementioned Super Whatsits. Well, know what they say about Super Kings … where there’s smoke.

Anyway, for all the glitz and glamour of the IPL – which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on one’s grumpiness – nobody can deny that there’s some serious talent on display. This alone makes watching it worthwhile. Although inevitably there are quite a lot of average Indian players involved (there would be a lot of average Englishmen involved too it was held in the UK) every match is a showdown between huge international stars. What makes it really interesting is that international teammates go head to head – something the English domestic game has lacked since the central contracts were introduced.

So who are this year’s contenders? It depends who you ask. There are a lot of good IPL betting guides but personally I think Royal Challengers Bangalore have the best squad. They’re led by old golden balls himself, Virat Kohli, and they boast the likes of AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle and Shane Watson (who usually does very well in the IPL). The bowling looks very handy too: there’s a fearsome seam attack of Mitchell Starc, Varon Aaron and Adam Milne supported by the West Indies leg-spinner, Samuel Badree.

The Royal Challengers certainly have a lot of talent and experience. They also benefit from having one of the more sober names – although I’m not sure if they’re supposed to be a team composed of cricketing royalty or a team specifically assembled to challenge royalty. I bet their coach, Daniel Vettori, doesn’t know either.

The other teams to watch are the defending champion Mumbai Indians, (whose best players aren’t Indian in the slightest), the Sunrisers Hyderabad, and the Pune Power Ranger Swatters. I’ll probably be following Mumbai because Jos Buttler is playing for them this year.

The Indians look like a solid bet. In addition to Jos they’ve got Rohit Sharma, Keiron Pollard, Lendl Simmons, Lasith Malinga and Harbhajan Singh. They’ve also broken the bank when it comes to support staff: their head coach is Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne will be helping the bowlers, and they’ve even signed up Jonty Rhodes as a fielding guru. I assume Nicky Clarke will be doing their hair and George Lucas their promotion videos.

The Sunrisers Hyderabad also appear a solid team on paper. They’re led by everyone’s favourite Aussie hoodlum, David Warner, and boast both Kane Williamson and Eoin Morgan. I’m not sure why Warner was preferred over both the New Zealand skipper and the England skipper, but maybe it’s got something to do with their Australian coach, Tom Moody?

Although I haven’t figured out what a Sunriser is yet – I’m assuming it’s some kind of cross between a sun lounger and an alarm clock –Hyderabad should be be fun to watch. They’ve got the promising Bangladeshi Mustafizur Rahman, plus a number of exciting Indian players like Yuvraj Singh, Shikhar Dhawan and the emerging Deepak Hooda. The latter can hit a very long ball.

Stephen Fleming’s Ascending Pune Oversized Colossi should also mount a serious challenge. Why? Because they’ve got Ajinkya Rahane, Faf du Plessis, Ravi Ashwin, Steve Smith and some bloke called Kevin Pietersen. The bowling looks a little a bit ordinary but at least guys like Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan have lots of experience to fall back on.

 The best of the rest is probably the Kolkata Knight Riders, who are once again being coached by Michael Knight. They’ve certainly got the right ‘kit’ to be competitive, although their recruitment policy made no sense whatsoever: for some strange reason they stocked up on quality bowlers but completely neglected the batting.

Kolkata’s bowlers, who are being coached by Wasim Akram, include Morne Morkel, Umesh Yadav, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla and Shakib Al Hasan. They even have the likes of John Hastings, Brad Hogg, Jason Holder and Sunil Narine in reserve. It’s a mouthwatering squad. Unfortunately the batting consists of Gautam Gambhir, Colin Monro and, err, that’s about it.

I’m not too optimistic about the other three teams to be honest. The Delhi Daredevils have some good players – not least Quinton De Kock, Carlos Brathwaite, Chris Morris and Imran Tahir – but they don’t seem to have much depth. Unless England’s Sam Billings emerges as a real star, I doubt their specialist batters will score enough runs on a consistent basis.

A lack of depth could also undermine Brad Hodge’s Gujarat Lions. They’ve got six big stars in Suresh Raina, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Ravi Jadeja, James Faulkner and Dale Steyn, but the rest won’t scare anyone. The same could be said of Kings XI Punjab, who are being captained by David Miller. They might have Mitchell Johnson and Glenn Maxwell, but they’ve also got Farhaan Behardien. Enough said.

I’d be interested to hear who you think could win this year’s competition (I’ve picked out the key players in each squad below). Which team have I criminally underestimated in typical TFT fashion? I’d also like to know your attitudes to the IPL in general. Do you enjoy the competition or think it’s an unedifying threat to test cricket? I suspect his one could be polarising.

 

2016 IPL Rosters (key players i.e. minus the chaff)

 

Delhi Daredevils (Head Coach Paddy Upton)

Batsmen: JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Sam Billings*

All rounders: Albie Morkel, Carlos Brathwaite, Chris Morris

Bowlers: Imran Tahir, Nathan Coulter Nile, Amit Mishra, Zaheer Khan (capt)

 

 Gujarat Lions – (Brad Hodge)

Batsmen: Suresh Raina, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik (wct), Aaron Finch

All rounders: Ravi Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, James Faulkner

Bowlers: Dale Steyn, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye

 

Kings XI Punjab – (Mentor Virender Sehwag)

Batsmen: Murali Vijay, Shaun Marsh

All-rounders: Glenn Maxwell, David Miller (capt), Farhaan Behardien, Marcus Stonis

Bowlers: Mitchell Johnson, Kyle Abbott, Mohit Sharma

 

 Kolkata Knight Riders – (Jacques ‘Hello Michael’ Kallis)

Batsmen: Gautam Gambhir (capt), Robin Uthappa, Colin Monro, Chris Lynn, Manish Pandey

All-rounders: Yusuf Pathan, Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hasan, John Hastings

Bowlers: Piyush Chawla, Umesh Yadav, Brad Hogg, Morne Morkel, Jason Holder, Sunil Narine

 

 Mumbai Indians (Ricky Ponting)

Batsmen: Robit Sharma (capt), Lendl Simmons, Jos Buttler*

All-rounders: Corey Anderson, Keiron Pollard

Bowlers: Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga, Marchant de Lange, Mitchell McClenaghan, Tim Southee

 

Rising Pune Humongous Monstrosities (Stephen Fleming)

Batsmen: Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Faf du Plessis, Steve Smith, Pietersen, Peter Handscombe

All rounders: Mitchell Marsh, RP Singh,

Bowlers: Ravi Ashwin, Adam Zampa, Ishant Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Ishwa Pandey, Scott Boland

 

Royal Challengers Bangalore (Daniel Vettori)

Batsmen: Virat Kohli (capt), AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Travis Head

All-rounders: Shane Watson, David Wiese, Stuart Binny,

Bowlers: Varon Aaron, Samuel Badree, Adam Milne, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson

 

Sunrisers Hyderabad (Tom Moody)

Batsmen: David Warner (capt), Eoin Morgan, Kane Williamson, Yuvraj Singh, Shikhar Dhawan

All-rounders: Deepak Hooda, Moises Henriques, Ben Cutting

Bowlers: Ashish Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Trent Boult, Mustafizur Rahman

 

James Morgan
Written in collaboration with OnlineCricketBetting

Subscribe to TFT for FREE:

Leave this field empty if you're human: