IPL Teams after Auction: Who Stands Where? Part-1

IPL auction is over. Most of the team owners have changed the complete profile of the team with buying new players this time and shedding the previous ones. Though the owners are hopeful that their new players will help them to better the team’s performance, the actual worth of the players can only be measured when the annual IPL tournament starts. The deals made in the auction room in Bangalore may be good or bad (Read: Five Best and Worst Deals in the IPL Auction 2011), but one or two bad or good deals may not affect the overall performance of a team. It is the over all team combination that matters.

So, which IPL team looks better than the other? Here is a brief team wise analysis. The analysis is made in three parts; this is part one and the second and third parts will be published later.

CHENNAI SUPER KINGS: This team seemed to have a definite and the most simple strategy in the player auction. The strategy was to ‘retain the winning combination’. CSK is undoubtedly the most successful team in the IPL so far with entering semifinals in all IPL seasons, two Final appearance and winning the title once. The team management didn’t want to dismantle the team and tried to maintain the same team. They used the player retention clause to retain four players in MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, M Vijay and Albie Morkel. They managed to buy the other players (who have donned the CSK jersey in previous seasons) like Ashwin, Bollinger, Hussey and Randiv in the auction. They must be happy to get Dwayne Bravo cheaply. Wridhiman Saha is a new player in the CSK and will replace Parthiv Patel. With Nuwan Kulasekara, Joginder Sharma, Sudeep Tyagi the bowling department has enough back up in case the main attack fails. The batting is equally strong but can some one effectively replace Hayden and give a solid start to the CSK innings?

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: The team had made up its mind before entering the auction room. They started the auction by picking up two players- Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan for Rs 20.70 crore- almost half of the purse available to them. Intention was clear: Faith on Indian big hitters. It didn’t bid for any of its old players (strangely including Sourav Ganguly) though picked up Manoj Tiwari as only Bengal face in the team. Not buying Ashoke Dinda was baffling while they went for Balaji which is not so good deal. Sakib Al Hasan may prove really helpful for KKR. Some other good buys that will help are: Kallis, Ryan Ten Doeschate, Eoin Morgan. Brett Lee deal may backfire if he gets injured before IPL starts. Jaydev Unadkat, Brad Haddin and James Pattinson are also OK type deals. Overall the team looks good, bowling department may cause worry as the team seems to be batting heavy. The fan base may get dented considering its non-signing Sourav (Read: Strong Reactionsfrom fans after IPL snub to Ganguly)

TEAM KOCHI: The team is yet to get a formal name. The team in many way doesn’t look good. With all respect to Laxman, I must say that the Laxman deal may not help the team. Sreesanth surely brings flavour and fans for the team yet performance wise the team can’t expect much from him. A very bad deal in Ravindra Jadeja makes it case worse. Well, all is not lost for Kochi. Jayawardene, McCullum, Owais Shah(may have availability issue) and Brad Hodge constitute the batting. The team without prominent Indian batsmen is not a good sign. They will have to get some really good uncapped batsmen. The bowling is comparatively better. RP Singh, Vinay Kumar, Sreesanth and great Murali will make a lethal bowling attack. Ramesh Powar is also available as back up. Parthiv Patel must be feeling happy as he ll get a prominent role in the team.