Indian Premier League (IPL)

[Atithee]

This is funny:

[prasen9]

Atithee, I will try not to answer or have fun poking Kohli's coach although it is too much fun because he is the great Kohli's coach.

But, I have to answer one thing. I am *NOT pro-incumbent*. Actually, I am not pro anything. I am a somewhat pathetic bot. I actually think that our subjective judgments are more often wrong than not, especially if we can build better models. I also agree that one point statistics such as average, SR, etc. are lazy approximations of what we need. Having said that, I am lazy and don't want to code up a better index. ESPN has done one but it actually is partial to higher order batters.

I am pro mechanistic selections. First, draw up the yardsticks. Then, use those to decide. I have no particular candidate I am rooting for the wicket-keeper derby. But, I have a process. Let the IPL play out in its full. Then, we look at the top players in forms, etc. Then, we see how close they were in this IPL. Then, we look at past performance. The past performance shows Ishan was miserably bad and Pant was bad too. Rahul has been decent in the past but maybe below par for today's game. DK has been the best keeper and perhaps among our top-5 T20I bats ever in terms of efficiency.

My principle is also to look at the whole career for class and the last 15 innings/dismissals, etc. for form.

Now, we get to choose on the basis of this data. If a couple of keepers are much ahead of others in this IPL, I'd possibly choose them. If not, then I have no clue. If someone pushed me right now, the best in the IPL have been Samson and Kishan. The best in their careers have been DK and Rahul. Pant is neither here, nor there. So, do we choose based on class or based on form? DK and Rahul have been classy and Samson and Kishan have been wretched in the international game. I will not complain if any of the four are chosen but I will really complain if Pant, who has been horrible in his career and not that great in this IPL except while giggling and spanking Venkatesh Prasad for 28 or whatever in one over is chosen.

If you put a gun, I'd perhaps go with Samson and whoever.

But, the night is still young. Let us wait for the IPL to be over. I am actually not asking the pontification to be over because thinking about what may be is lots of fun for me and for some of you.

Ok, I will try to be polite and not poke the coach. Let me see if I can keep my word. Or if I want to sin again. I will honestly try to keep restrained.

[Atithee]

Thanks, Prasen. I know it’s fun. The team will be announced at the end of April while IPL will end after that. Therefore, our selections cannot be based on full data from this year’s IPL. I’m resigned to accept that the old guard will be given another chance. I think they’ve already chosen the team and will somehow influence the IPL results to justify their preselected team. It pretty much means we kiss our chance goodbye now.

https://www.timesnownews.com/sports/cri ... -109173061

Meanwhile, the new pace sensation—Yadav—is already sitting out due to injury. For someone to be out so soon after bowling about 25 overs means he didn’t learn from his past experiences.

[prasen9]

Yes. Unfortunate. I don't know if there is anyone in the Indian setup who can help. Maybe talk to Bumrah. But, the one young player who had lots of injuries as a junior was Cummins. He was handled with kid gloves, had an indivdualized program set up, and held back at times when I thought he should just be allowed to play. The result was that after that he has played continuously. There was some theory that his body was still growing/adjusting and they wanted to manage it until it was set. Mayank is young too. Langer is the coach. Talk to him and talk to Cummins through him. Get the contacts for the Australian Academy folks who worked with him, Starc, etc. And, get Lucknow or BCCI to pay for a good fitness/rehabilitation program.

Sin Hombre has pretty much given up. I have 90% given up because we simply don't have pace-bowling allrounders, top-hitting keeper, and most importantly the ability to adapt to the modern game and take the initiative from ball one and don't be afraid to lose. We will see what happens. We don't have the naturally talented strongmen who now dominate West Indies cricket - it used to be bowlers. Now it is their hard hitting batters. I mean look at the IPL. It is practically a WPL on the batting side (I am exaggerating, of course, but seems like).

Pooran, Russell, Narine - in the top-8 impact/innings bats, Romario #12 - no other foreign batters in the top 12. Hope #33. Having 4 mega-hitters where 1 can be consistent and play long too, two are allrounders, and a third is a bowling allrounder. I mean that is a fabulous batting lineup. They don't have that many good bowlers. Or the other support to these power hitters and thus may not win. But, it is in their home. We should emulate the WI batting that got them two cups. Play big hitters.

This is also why we need to see a bit more of these latest johnny-go-luckies. Mayank has looked fabulous. But, we don't want another guy who would go and break down in 2-3 games. He needs to do his magic more consistently. Rana got a shoulder strain after two matches. And, he does not bowl that fast, I think. So, another promising guy who started well gone ... Let's see who turns up.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

What a "class" innings by KL
Kishan & Samson are nothing. How can WC team be selected by ignoring this "class"

[prasen9]

Ignore.

[karr]

Thx for ignoring Prasen.
Rajkumar, what's the point of needling or poking fun? Your thoughts on the game or our side or specific players is welcome. Sarcasm when its over done or as a flame bait makes this forum less interesting.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Unless its over from other end it will continue. Going against all star players who has played nearly every WCs, lost each of it in knockouts and still wanting more, and asking new performers for WC isnt a matter of fun. If its taken in way of sarcasm, reply will also be there in the way of sarcasm.

[Atithee]

^^And what does it achieve, Sharma ji?

[prasen9]

It is over from the other end. At least for a while. Chill out guys.

[Mukherjee Babu]

Thx for ignoring Prasen.
Rajkumar, what's the point of needling or poking fun? Your thoughts on the game or our side or specific players is welcome. Sarcasm when its over done or as a flame bait makes this forum less interesting.

That's got to happen, everyone can't accept when certain individual claims his views & suggestion are right & excellent, rest all are rubbish & nonsense.

Change the rule in that rule section and write " Certain individuals ( by mentioning the member names) views must be accepted, nobody can deny or go against them" or change the name of the forum in favour of those members sarcasm, fun, even members all will disappear

[prasen9]

So, after a few more matches. Now, the leaderboards are stabilizing a bit.

Impact/game leaders (qual:3 matches): Kuldeep, Bumrah, Mayank Y, Parag, Rana, Chahal, Samson, Abhishek, Nata, Arshdeep, Khaleel, Gill

Because bowlers get a chance every match, as do top order batters, but not lower order ones, we have to separate the lists.

Batters (or primarily batters): Parag, Samson, Gill, Kohli, Sashank, Ishan, Prithvi, Dube, Jadeja

All of these are and should be in contention except Sashank, who is 32. He averages a tad low with the bat and a tad high with the ball but can be an utility player. I doubt he will be chosen in reality though. Prithvi has played moderately well, better than Dube or Jadeja with the bat. But, he perhaps needs a lot more runs to be back.

Wrt the keepers, Samson and Ishan are in form. They have also conclusively failed in the international game unlike Rahul and Karthik who have done the best when given the India cap. Do, we go for the form or for their international career data? In other words, has anything changed fundamentally in Samson and Ishan's game that makes us think they can do better given more chances when they were very timid with the bat when given chances before? Let's see a bit more to see who can be consistent. I do not have a conclusive answer here. My guess is the selectors are going to split the baby and go with Samson and Rahul. Or Ishan over Samson if Ishan does better than Samson in the next few matches.

Parag deserves to be chosen but will the selectors give caps to debutants in the T20 WC? I think we have enough firepower to treat the initial rounds as a bit of a practice games especially against minnows and we can slip in some international games for Parag.

On the bowling side, we have Bumrah. Will Mayank Y be fit and able to maintain his form? Rana is already hurt. Arshdeep is perhaps the other certainty. By form the next two should be Nata and Khaleel assuming Mayank Y is not fit.

Spinners led by Kuldeep. Chahal is another one who failed in the international stage especially in the latter part of his career while doing very well in IPL. We have seen him perform well in the IPL and gone back to him and he failed in tight situations again and again. So, I am not too eager to have that repeated. Parag, Abhishek, Sashank, Jadeja, etc. can pitch in some bowling from the spinning side.

Best pace-bowling allrounder (by impact): Hardik

[prasen9]

So, RR, KKR, CSK, SRH are the top four now. My MVP so far Sunil Narine with apologies to Bumrah.

[Kumar]

What an astounding innings from Dhoni.. 20 runs off 4 balls. To have opponent crowd going bonkers over your performance…

In a popularity scale, who are your top three indians that crowd will come to watch bat and may even cheer your own team player dismissal to see them bat?

Sachin, Dhoni and Kapil in that order., there is recency bias, but i think Dhoni may be much closer to Sachin, than kapil to Dhoni

I think CSKmay not be that good. They just seem to have better straegy. Very smart to play Rahane as opener and push Gaikwad who plays spinners well. With both Dube and Gaikwad, Mumbai did not bring any spinners when those two players were batting. More and more teams are not bringing spinners when Dube bat.

My gut instinct tells me that MI will come back to form.

[karr]

Responding to your question, but from a perspective of how it applies to me:
Sachin, Dhoni, Kapil would all be in my top 10.
On Indian wickets, I would also pick Yuvraj and Rohit, who are just so easy on the eye.
Sehwag, Laxman were also folks who were either top entertainment value or somehow just provided happiness to the soul.
All of the above were done, with just a very personal POV, with utter disregard to run scoring efficiency, averages or win %s. And heavy cherry picking biases when those players were in form.

CSK is never a team that oozes with talent, nor is this one. Why they win as much as they do, seems to be about process, keeping players in a good mental state, and somehow the total being bigger than the sum of its parts. Their leadership stability and consistency with Fleming, Hussey, Dhoni is likely another reason. But I am with you on being somewhat skeptical of CSK this year. Let's see how far they can take it in Dhoni's swansong. His cameos and arrival hoopla will be difficult to sustain, but he's timed it so well so far.