IPL 2017: Know your team - Strengths, Weaknesses and Key Performance Indicators

Gujarat Lions

Brendon McCullum will be one of Gujarat Lions’ most important player

Strength: Top order

Last season Gujarat had the highest run rate among all teams in the Powerplay and have added to their top order power of Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Dwayne Smith, Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik with Jason Roy this season.

Weakness: Spin bowling

Gujarat Lions bought just one spinner at the auction this year, Tejas Baroka, a little-known leg spinner. He will join the inexperienced Shivil Kaushik and the now resting Ravindra Jadeja as Gujarat’s spinners. The news that Jadeja will miss at least the first three weeks of the season leaves them with two inexperienced wrist spinners and very little else.

Key Performance Indicator: Middle overs batting

Gujarat’s lower order batting is a concern: Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo and James Faulkner are all-rounders whose batting has always been their weaker suit and is declining. Ishan Kishan, likely to squeeze into the middle order, has been in good form but is inexperienced.

Critical to helping this lower order out will be ensuring they don’t come in too early, which therefore places importance on the performance of the top and middle order in the middle overs.