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The 11th edition of the Indian Premier League is now less than a month away. After witnessing a major shake-up, the teams finally seem sorted with their captains and coaches. A lot of players will be featuring in new colors this year and it will be interesting to see how they fare for their new franchise. Teams like Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai will be looking to extend their dominance while Bangalore, Delhi and Punjab will be raring to lay hands on their maiden titles. After the retentions and the hard fought auction, it is evident that all franchises have some glaring strengths and weaknesses.
You can take a look at each franchise's biggest weakness here.
Let us now take a look at the primary strength of each franchise, ahead of the eleventh edition of the IPL:
#1 Chennai Super Kings - Experience
The Chennai Super Kings are finally back after a two year hiatus. They will be looking to pick up from where they left off. They made an excellent choice by retaining three of their most iconic Indian players - MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and "Sir" Ravindra Jadeja. Dhoni and Raina started their careers with the Super Kings franchisee in the inaugural season and Jadeja joined soon later. The three have each individually been pivotal in the immense success that the Chennai Super Kings has witnessed over the years.
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In the auction, they retained Dwayne Bravo and Faf du Plessis. Bravo has been a sensation for the Super Kings and has won two purple caps in their yellow colors. Faf is the South African captain and the experience he brings with him is priceless. They also managed to add to their squad the trio of Harbhajan Singh, Shane Watson and Ambati Rayudu. Seven IPL titles have been won between the three of them!
A squad filled with such experienced cricketers who have tasted victory already will have an upper hand in high pressure situations, and could taste even more success in the coming years!
#2 Delhi Daredevils - Gautam Gambhir's captaincy
The Delhi Daredevils are yet to win their maiden IPL title. Every season, they come in to the IPL with a good-looking team on paper, but falter when it matters. The Delhi Daredevils have not had a constant captain in their ranks since Virender Sehwag retired in 2012. With talented youngsters like Shreyas Iyer, Rishab Pant and Vijay Shankar in the squad, they need a leader to mentor and guide them. Luckily for them, they managed to procure one of the best captains this tournament has seen in the form of Gautam Gambhir.
The 35-year-old has captained the Knight Riders to two IPL titles. He has built a name for himself for his brilliant captaincy. His understanding of the game and cricketing tactics are tried and tested. Moreover, Gambhir will have extra motivation to guide the Delhi Daredevils to the title as he is a staunch Delhi-ite himself!
With a proven leader in their ranks, could this finally be the Delhi Daredevils' season?
#3 Kings XI Punjab - The Karnataka batsmen
The Kings XI Punjab have in their ranks three batsman from a state on the other side of the country. The Karnataka trio of KL Rahul, Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal were bought by the Kings XI Punjab for a combined INR 17.6 crores!
Karnataka have dominated the domestic circuit in recent times. They won the recently concluded Vijay Hazare trophy, making it their third title in five years. A lot of young talent has emerged from the state. The demand for Karnataka youngsters was evident in the recent IPL auction, as KL Rahul and Manish Pandey were each sold for a whopping INR 11 crores.
KL Rahul is one of India's most promising youngsters. In 2016, Rahul hit close to 400 runs at a healthy strike rate of 146.49. He did not feature in a single game in 2017 owing to an unfortunate injury.
Karun Nair was captain of the Karnataka team that lifted the Vijay Hazare trophy recently, and he led from the front, opening their batting. He scored 279 runs at an average of close to 40. In the IPL, he has notched up over 1000 runs across 55 games, and is a handy batsman to have.
Mayank Agarwal smashed Indian domestic records this season. He scored 723 runs during the tournament and scored 2,141 runs across all formats, the highest total by any batsman in an Indian domestic season. At INR 1 crore, he could turn out to be one of the steals of the season.
The Kings XI Punjab will be hoping that their Karnataka trio can come together and win matches for their franchisee this year, much like they have for their state in the domestic circuit.
#4 Kolkata Knight Riders - Overseas talent
Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell and Mitchell Starc. There are very few cricketers who are better than any of these four in the shortest format of the game. If you are not a KKR fan, realizing that these four stars will play for the same team is bound to send a shiver down your spine.
Let's start with the Australians. Chris Lynn, rightly nicknamed "Lynn-sanity", smashed 295 runs in 7 games last season at an unreal strike rate of 180.98. He hasn't featured as much as he could have in the IPL owing to his nagging shoulder injury. He has shown what he is capable of in the Big Bash League on several occasions. If fit, Lynn is a force to reckon with. His countryman Mitchell Starc has nabbed 34 wickets in just 27 IPL games. He has shown how devastating a bowler he is in Australian colors. His fierce swinging bowling can trouble even the best of batsmen.
The West Indians are both prolific all-rounders. Andre Russell was the MVP of the 2015 season, having smashed 326 runs at a strike rate of - wait for it - 192.89. As if that wasn't enough, he managed to bag 14 scalps with the ball as well. Sunil Narine is widely regarded as one of the best bowlers in the IPL. He has bagged 95 wickets in 82 games at a ridiculously low economy of 6.32. As if his bowling wasn't enough, Narine opened the batting for the Knight Riders last seasons and notched up 224 runs at a whopping strike rate of 172.30!
It will be hard to stop the Knight Riders from their third IPL title if these four stellar cricketers hit their stride!
#5 Mumbai Indians - Depth of the batting lineup
The Mumbai Indians have won the coveted trophy thrice in the last five years. One major factor in their success over these years has been the depth of their batting lineup owing to the presence of exceptional all-rounders. Harbhajan Singh, who would sometimes come as late as seven down, could pack a punch with the bat too. All-rounders such as Kieron Pollard, the Pandya brothers and Karn Sharma to name a few have ensured in the past that the Mumbai Indians would still be in the game despite losing multiple wickets.
The Mumbai Indians head in to IPL 2018 with an incredibly deep batting lineup. Evin Lewis and Ishan Kishan are likely to open with the bat. Rohit Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav make up a strong middle order. Should the Mumbai Indians opt to play either one of all-rounders JP Duminy or Ben Cutting instead of Mustafizur Rahman, one of these many batsmen could end up coming in to bat at as late as number eight!
With such a deep batting lineup, it's hard to imagine the Mumbai Indians falter in a run chase.
#6 Rajasthan Royals - The middle order
History has shown the importance of a sound middle order. The Royal Challengers through bitter experience know how critical it is. The Mumbai Indians have won three titles in the last five years owing to a consistently performing middle order.
The Rajasthan Royals seem sorted when it comes to their middle order. Steve Smith, Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler are likely to feature in their middle order, followed by all-rounders K Gowtham and Jofra Archer (provided he recovers from injury). Steve Smith is one of the most reliable batsman in the world today, and showcased his brilliance in the IPL last year as he almost led the Rising Pune Supergiants to the title. Young Sanju Samson has time and again shown his worth, having racked up close to 1500 runs in 66 games. He is an explosive batsman who can push the run-rate up drastically. Ben Stokes came out of the auctions as the most expensive player for the second time in a row and for good reason too. The Englishman is spectacular with both bat and ball. Jos Buttler is one of the best finishers in the game today, and demonstrated his ability with the bat for the Mumbai Indians last year.
With such a star-studded middle order, the Rajasthan Royals do not have much worry about in their batting lineup.
#7 Royal Challengers Bangalore - Squad depth
The Royal Challengers, over the years, have known to be overly reliant on their star-studded batting lineup. In the previous auctions, they splurged a large chunk of their funds on one star player (Dinesh Karthik, Yuvraj Singh and Shane Watson). This strategy backfired for the Royal Challengers as these star players failed to live up to their potential.
This year, the franchisee from Bangalore have played smart at the auction. Rather than splurging on one star player, they have spent their money wisely to build a good-looking overall squad. All their positions have replacements and they can tinker with their squads at will. They can use the "horses for courses" approach to games depending on the pitch.
They have plenty of capable openers such as Quinton de Kock, Brendon McCullum, Manan Vohra and Parthiv Patel. Not much has to be said about number three and four, i.e. Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers respectively. They have excellent all-rounders to choose from including Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali and Colin de Grandhomme. They have two fine Indian middle-order batsman in the form of Sarfaraz Khan and Mandeep Singh as well. Their spin department is well endowed with high quality Indian spinners such as Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi and Murugan Ashwin. They have plenty of pacers to choose from, such as Nathan Coulter-Nile, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Aniket Choudhary, Tim Southee and Kulwant Khejroliya.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore have a squad that is capable of taking them all the way to the much coveted trophy this year.
#8 Sunrisers Hyderabad - The bowling lineup
Choosing between their opening partnership and bowling lineup as the Sunrisers' biggest strength wasn't easy. However, the bowling lineup edged it simply because of the fact that it is just too good.
19-year-old Rashid Khan from Afghanistan is the number 1 ODI and T20 bowler in the world right now. Swinging sensation Bhuvneshwar Kumar has won the purple cap in the last two editions and is favorite to make it three in a row. The Sunrisers have two exceptional overseas spinning all-rounders in their ranks. One is Shakib Al Hasan, who is the number one ranked T20 all-rounder, and has bagged 43 scalps in the IPL at an impressive economy of 7.17. The other is Mohammad Nabi, who is in prime form with both ball and bat for the Afghanistan cricket team. He is known for his controlled economical bowling and his ability to bat as the situation demands.
The Sunrisers have a plethora of young talent to chose from in their fast bowling department. Sandeep Sharma, Basil Thampi, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Siddarth Kaul and T Natarajan are all brilliant young speedsters and there will be stiff competition among them to make it to the starting eleven. Sandeep Sharma's swing bowling has proven to be very effective in the IPL over the years. Basil Thampi has the knack of bowling pin-point yorkers in the death. Siddarth Kaul impressed last season with 16 wickets in his 10 games. Syed Khaleel Ahmed is a twenty-year-old up-and-coming bowling sensation.
Bowling has always been a strong suite for the Sunrisers and it looks like it could be their trump card in the upcoming season as well.
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