Home players of the 8 IPL teams

The Indian Premier League (IPL) consists of 8 franchisees, based in 8 cities in India. In 2008, when the IPL started, lots of emphasis was placed by the franchisees and the owners to select the local players as part of their teams. Owners felt that this will help the team to create an identity and help the fans of the city to connect with the team due to the presence of familiar home grown players.The IPL governing council designated specific catchment regions for the different teams from where they could pick domestic players. There was also the general perception that players will enjoy playing for their home city and this will motivate them to perform better. However, now domestic players now go into auctions and the concept of catchment regions has been removed, to enable the franchisees from picking players from any part of India through the auction. The focus of the franchisees now is to pick talent and quality without worrying too much about the state teams that the players represent.We now take a look at the eight teams in the IPL and who are the home players part of the IPL team who is from the city or the state that the player is from. It is surprising to know that some teams don't have even a single home grown players:

#1 Chennai Super Kings

Home Player(s):

• Baba Aparajith
• Ravichandran Ashwin

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) started the IPL with a barrage of players from Tamil Nadu, the state which CSK represent. Players like Subramanium Badrinath, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Palani Amarnath, Hemang Badani, Napoleon Einstein, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan and Abhinav Mukund were part of the CSK roster for the first few seasons.

However, CSK have gone for a clever strategy in the last few seasons, retaining the most prominent player from that list and looking elsewhere for better players. Ashwin continues to be a part of CSK and they have further picked one of the most promising players from the state, Baba Aparajith, while releasing everyone else. As of 2015, these two players are the only two home players part of CSK.

#2 Delhi Daredevils

Home Player(s):

None

A city which has produced some of the finest cricketers of the country does not have any home players in its IPL team. Surprising, right!? Delhi Daredevils (DD) is built around foreign players like JP Duminy and Nathan Coulter-Nile and Indian players like Yuvraj Singh, who is from Punjab and Shreyas Iyer from Mumbai. Players from Delhi like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and AshishNehra were given opportunities in the earlier seasons but DD have chopped and changed their team every season and they have ended up with no players from Delhi in their roster.

#3 Kings XI Punjab

Home Player(s):

• Sandeep Sharma
• Anureet Singh
• Gurkeerat Singh
• Manan Vohra
• Karanveer Singh

Credit must be given to Kings XI Punjab (KXIP). They have four players who represent Punjab and another player from Punjab who plays for Railways in the Ranji Trophy in their squad. Sandeep, Gurkeerat, Manan and Karanveer are integral parts of Punjab state team and Anureet had a great season with Railways. It is also interesting to note that Manan Vohra, the opening batsman, had picked up the Emerging Player Award last year.

Anureet and Sandeep are lighting the IPL with their impressive bowling this year and many opportunities have been given to the leg spinner Karanveer and the middle order batsman Gurkeerat. They are the only IPL team to have focussed on building their team around their home state and it has greatly benefitted Indian cricket.

#4 Kolkata Knight Riders

Home Player(s):

Veer Pratap Singh

Over the years, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have had many players from Bengal in their squad. They had the legendary Sourav Ganguly as their skipper for the first season of IPL and over the years, players like Debabrata Das, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ashok Dinda, Mohammed Shami and Wriddhiman Saha have played for KKR at some stage of the IPL.

In fact, it was KKR who discovered the talented Shreevats Goswami and Mohammed Shami, both of whom were unknown before the IPL. However, these players didn’t take their opportunities and KKR have been forced to look elsewhere. Veer Pratap Singh, the fast bowler who previously used to play for Deccan Chargers, is the only home player in KKR’s squad.

#5 Mumbai Indians

Home Player(s):

• Rohit Sharma
• Akshay Wakhare
• Aditya Tare
• Siddhesh Lad

Mumbai Indians (MI) are captained by a Mumbai lad, Rohit Sharma. That is the best a team can do to please the fans. With legends like Sachin Tendulkar, who retired as the captain of MI as part of the backroom staff, MI have emphasised a lot on local talent over the years. Aditya Tare, Mumbai’s Ranji captain this year, has been part of MI for the past few seasons. MI also selected Mumbai batsman, Siddhesh Lad and spinner Akshay Wankhare, who represents Vidarbha in the Ranji trophy. Famous Mumbai players like Suryakumar Yadav, Iqbal Abdulla, Zaheer Khan and Ajinkya Rahane were also part of MI in the past, but were subsequently released.

#6 Rajasthan Royals

Home Player(s):

Dishant Yagnik

Dishant Yagnik, Rajashtan Royals’ (RR) reserve wicket-keeper is the only local player in their team. Previously, players like Ashok Menaria, Deepak Chahar and Pankaj Singh were part of their team, but they have been dropped in favour of talent elsewhere. Ashok Menaria, the left arm batting all-rounder was given many chances, but he failed to do so. Other prominent players from Rajasthan include Robin Bist, who was part of the Delhi squad and Aniket Choudhary, who used to be a part of KXIP.

#7 Royal Challengers Bangalore

Home Player(s):

• Shishir Bhavane
• Sreenath Aravind

The record breaking domestic champions of India, Karnataka have arguably, the best team in the entire country. It is, however, surprising that none of the stars of this years Karnataka team, Robin Uthappa, Mayank Agarwal, Manish Pandey, Stuart Binny, Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun are not part of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). All of them except Binny and Pandey have played for RCB at some stage of their IPL career, but are now important players for their respective franchisees.

RCB have tried to bridge this gap by signing Shishir Bhavane, the talented left-handed batsman, who was the man of the tournament in the Karnataka Premier League. RCB also signed Bangalore based fast bowler Sreenath Aravind as a replacement for Adam Milne.

#8 Sunrisers Hyderabad

Home Player(s):

• Hanuma Vihari
• Ashish Reddy
• Chama Milind
• Ricky Bhui

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have three players in their ranks, who play for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy too. The exceptionally talented Hanuma Vihari, who has represented India at the U-19 level has been part of the SRH team for the past few years. His Hyderabad team-mate, allrounder Ashish Reddy, also plays for SRH and is an integral part of the eleven, at the moment.

Left arm pace bowler, Chama Milind and Andhra batsman, Ricky Bhui are also part of the roster. Players from Hyderabad who have previously played for SRH or the now defunct Deccan Chargers include Pragyan Ojha, Akshath Reddy and Dwaraka Ravi Teja.