IPL 2012 chit chat

Big Chris has his new swiss bank account sorted and has agreed to stay with BCB next year.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$  Sweet Azz...

Lets see how much Mallya cliamed he paid him. DOnt think he will say he used up the $2 purse.

Good for the tournament IMO.

The salary cap has pretty much gone out the window now with all this 'how much shall we say we're paying' crap. Mumbai are clearly spending way more than everyone else. Have somehow swapped Sathish for Dinesh Karthik and can get away with paying him $1.5m instead of Sathish's $55k salary! what a load of sh1te!

was  a much fairer comp when Modi was in charge (altho he had shares in Rajasthan! )

Surprised the smaller teams arent making more of a fuss about this. Its bullsh1t.

Yuvraj ruled out of IPL due to his tumor. http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/current/story/550983.html

Pune in real sh*t now and with Ganguly playing I expect them to be languisihing near the bottom again.

They should go all out for Ravindra Jadeja,Parthi Patel , McCuulum, Jayawardene, Hodge  Need to get atleast 2 of them to have any chance and playing Ganguly will be disastrous - Scores at a SR of 100 irrespective of the scenario, can be tied down and has hardly played any cricket.

My Semi Finalist will be the same as last time - MI, CSK, KKR and RCB but expect some fight from Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals. DC, Pune and Kings to be absolutely useless though the good news from Kings is Shaun Marsh's disastrous performance means he wont be in the Aussie team but otherwise nothing in that team especially with Kartik now with Mumbai and Gilly 1 year older

Auction this Saturday. Kochi players the main draw and Laxman has a reserve price of $400,000 . If he goes unsold then the BCCI will have to make up his fees or thats whats suppose to be done.

McCullum, Jayawardene, R Jadeja, P Patel expected to be the guys in demand. Swann and Tamim are interesting choices also in the Auction, Tamim may get a bid as the teams have a purse and if they miss the big guys the may go for Tamim. Swann a good bid as even if he is unavailable they dont pay him.

I thought Mitchell Johnson would also try and play, but havent read anything recently. Dont see him getting back in the Aussie side for a while so he may as well make some money.

Would love to see the Pakistani players as that would increase the value of the tournament big time but thats for another day.

Mate I think you should check about Ganguly. If I rem correctly, I read him and Allan Donald have been added to the team as coaching staff ! Dont think he is playing.

Player **** Coach. Hopefully more coach and less player.

Ok I just checked. He is supposed to be playing as a player as well as mentor. Though I hope he is only the mentor, as he could make a god coach. Was very aggressive n smart for India. Its his batting which is long FINNISHED !

that was a good* coach, not a god coach by any means :)

RCB has said they paid Gayle $550,000. An Absolute Joke - EVeryone knows about the underhand dealings here.

Ravindra Jadeja expected to be the most sought after player but with a $2 Million cap

RCB has said they paid Gayle $550,000. An Absolute Joke - EVeryone knows about the underhand dealings here.

Ravindra Jadeja expected to be the most sought after player but with a $2 Million cap

RCB has said they paid Gayle $550,000. An Absolute Joke - EVeryone knows about the underhand dealings here.

Ravindra Jadeja expected to be the most sought after player but with a $2 Million cap

Cont..

Ravindra Jadeja expected to be the most sought after player but with a $2 Million cap  it willl go into a tie breaker and no one can take on the richest man in India there so I expect Jadeja to go to MI. MI now by far the best team with a team readin

Tendulkar, Blizzard/Davy Jacobs,DInesh Kartik, Rohit Sharma, Rayudu, Pollard, Jadeja, Harbhajan, Munaf, Malinga, Fernando/Franklin

FOr the sake of the IPL I hope Jadeja goes to a Kings X1 or a Deccan so they can make a fight.

which channel is showing the auction live ? last time it was set max

Its Set Max again. Starts at 10:45

thx buddy.  last time some hot chix in DC camp.

LOL If you want to look at hot chicks the Auction is not the place. 80% of the time it will be focussed on Richard Madley the auctioneer

This year wont be half as interesting the players are much lesser. Last time was a fresh Auction with every player up for grabs so was extremely interesting

anybody found a link for this yet?

i find the purchases absolutely baffling

mitchell johnson over wright or rampaul?

my unsold XI, same price as Jayawardene (who I hardly consider a great T20 bat) and over half a million in change instead of Jadeja.

Tharanga (50k)
Iqbal (50k)
Shah (200k)
Henriques (50k)
Dwayne Smith (100k)
Wright (200k)
Prior (200k)
Piggy Smith (200k)
Doherty (100k)
Philander (200k)
Rampaul (100k)

Jaya a sensational T20 batsman since he has started opening the innings especially under these conditions.

SOme of the NonSelections baffling especially Owais Shah who is not part of the national team and would be available throughout. English players at a disadvantage as they are hardly available not only this year but every year but if you have spare funds Wright and Prior definately worth a bid. Iqbal, Thranaga and Smth were never going to get a bid  Overseas spots are too precious to waste on players like these IMO

good call on jadeja rohit, just what you said would happen

Jadeja a great signing. not surprised he fetched such a high price.

Narine for $700k er... wow! defo worth taking a punt on him for sure but $700k is serious money for such an unproven talent.

Looks like the strong teams have improved and the weak ones got weaker. could be some really one sided games this year Raj look utterly f ucked if Watson doesnt play the majority or their games.

Mitchell Johnson - $300,000 to Mumbai Indians

An absolute steal to get arguably the best white ball bowler in the world for this price. Before you add in some power hitting and incredible athleticism and hands in the field! Mumbai going to defend some scores once again this year.

Herschelle Gibbs - $50,000 to Mumbai Indians (base price $50,000)

Another great signing for MI. I see Brad Dodge went for $450,000 wont be enough to stop him fixing a few games again this year

Dinesh Karthik - Kings XI Punjab to Mumbai Indians
Pragyan Ojha - Deccan Chargers to Mumbai Indians

Two more superb signings. Mumbai really have no excuses this year do they? Especially with the Champions league in the bag.

SRT
Gibbs/Blizzard/Jacobs
Rayudu
Sharma
Karthik
Pollard
Johnson
Bhaji
Malinga
Ojha
Patel.

Good luck chasing down scores against that lot!

Yup ROlo.,Got that wrong. MI actually did the bargain basement buying which totally caught me by sshock and probably some of the best buying. Still think MI will be fantastic, as can be seen by the team of Nugget.

Delhi batting looks scary with Birt/Finch also there, so KP, Sehwag, Warner, Jaya and Bith/Finch. They have a lot of Indian seamers (Irfan,Aaron, Dinda, Agarkar) so they will probably play all foreign batsman/keeper or maybe 3 and van De Merwe. Can see them reaching the semis. Chennai as usual a very strong squad. KKR and Bangalore still look very good.

Still think RR can be a fighting unit, they always look poor but will do OK. Dravid, Watson, Rahane, Rosco, Hodge and Mineria a decent line up with probably Botha to play. Bowling a bit weak though

Punjab have gone backwards look absolutely useless. If Pune doesnt play the wooden spoon comes to them. Only bright spot with S Marsh poor form is he will probably be available throughout

DC look average but some quality bowlers in INdian conditions (I Sharma and A Mishra) as well as Steyn and Theron. Batting look poor with only Sanga quality. Parthiv and Dhawan OK but rest is White, JP and Christian and dont know how many they can play of these.

Lets see how the Pune situation unfolds else we will have another round of bidding with Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Ryder, Smith, M Marsh, Furgusson and Angelo Matthews being in demand. Yuvraj will stay out this year I assime

Absolutely farcical situation there

so this 2 mn usd is paid to jadeja for 1 year or 3 years together ?

if a player is avaialble for only few matches. he will be paid pro-rata

It is for 1 year. Pro-rata.

Also in this case Jadeja does not get the $2 MN. He gets 950000 which was the original price he was sold at last year. All players get what they got last year irrespective of how much they were bbid for. If lower then they get paid the difference and vice versa

i meant that you got it right about the 2million and the tie breaker

Yup Lix - Was due some updating after the events of the recent weeks.

Pune who had pulled out are back in. BCCI seems to have bent to someone after several years which is good to see though this tinkering of rules makes the tournament lack credibility.

The biggest compromise is that PUne will get 3.6 Million in this auction but the best players have been taken i.e. Jadeja, Jayawardene, McCullum etc and they will; have to make do with the rest

The other area that is pending approval of the other franchises is 5 foreign players. If Pune is allowed that then I believe they will compete this year else they will compete with Punjab for the wooden spoon

They will also be able to get players in the transfer window so lets see if any teams sell them some of their stars. I doubt it very much unless Pune pays some crazy money.

Players that Pune could buy who are unsold from the auction are the following - Owais Shah, Matt Prior, Marty twotoes Guptill, Kevin Obrien, Swannie, Dwayne Smith, Brendan Taylor.

Will still be a weak team but with 5 foreign players the team they could put out would be

Manish Pandey, Saurav Ganguly (Unfortunately),G SMith, Jesse Ryder, Uthappa, Mitchelll Marsh, Angelo Matthews, Nathan

Has Betfair started a character restriction too ??

COntinued..

Manish Pandey, Saurav Ganguly (Unfortunately),G SMith, Jesse Ryder, Uthappa, Mitchelll Marsh, Angelo Matthews, Nathan McCullum/Alfonso Thomas, R SHarma, Murali Kartik and Ashish Nehra

Now add an Indian batsman if Pune can get hold of and replace him with Ganguly the team looks decent

Is the 5 foreigners for everyone or just a 1 yr consession to Pune? Would actually even things up a bit if everyone played 5 cos its normally the teams with the most indian talent that do the best. (RCB the exception but Gayle is a freak)

Anyone else think Symmonds had his contract paid up so Mumbai can fill another overseas slot?  $850k is nothing to them and Symmo wasnt gonna do anything this year anyway.

Guptill would be a very decent signing for someone right now. world class fielder and can play every game. could pick him up for $100-200k I'd imagine.

Guptill sounds kinda indian too. maybe they can do some digging in his family tree and get him an indian passport so he wouldn't have to play as an overseas..

Yup Gupta will be a good pick.

Pune may have this option for 1 year if other franchises agree. BCCI started this nonsense with MI in the CLT20 so they have set a precedent.

The 4 top teams all have quality India batsman  Even Bangalore have Indias best batsman across formats in Virat Kohli, Saurabh Tiwari who was exception for MI in IPL3 and Chetashwar Pujara, a very good talent, Compare that to Punjab for who Kartik was the best batsman and the valthaty and Deccan who had only Shikhar Dhawan and you know why the table ended up as it did.

Pune may have missed the bus with the Auction but 5 foreign players will make up for that.

i often can't believe how a mug like christian gets 900,000 USD in the ipl and a player like martin guptil don't even get a bid.
would love to see him in pune as he will defo. bring some power with his batting and electric fielding. also he can bowl a bit.

can't understand how they make their strategies really. think most people who work their didn't even know how to hold a cricket bat.

rohit, lix have you seen a six bigger than the guptil one of 127m ever ?

i think nathan astle had hit one against pakistan in an odi.

The other franchises have refused Punes request for 5 foreign players so expect them to strggle. Stiill think they will go ahead of Punjab but dont seem to have much else going for them.

IPL team seems to be obsessed with Aussie including some mediocre ones like Luke Ronchi,Chris Lynn , Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn (Last 2 very good at their peak but not at 40) and no takers for some seriously good players like Guptill, Swann, Prior etc. If you have money in the kitty and you pay players pro rata why not take these players as even if they are available for 60% of the tournament they will be worth it.

Was beyond me how Gayle was not bid for in the last auction. He had not signed the central contract with the WICB and would have been available for most of the tournament. People focussed onn how Ganguly was not picked but I was stunned about Gayle. Bangalore used common sense and have benefitted hugely.

Didnt see Guptill's 6. Some of the biiigest I have seen in Dhoni against Punjab a couple of years ago and Mark Waugh in Perth or Adelaide that went onto the roof.

How do they measure it as 127m when it stopped on the roof!

The same way they measure whether a ball with hit the stumps when it is stopped by the pads. Same Technology

So will Ricky Ponting now look to make some money on the extra free time he will have.

He was vociferous a few years ago and had  showdown with Wrnie and hayden and even KKR bought out his contract due to his lackof committment to the IPL. Lets see if he tries to build bridges the way Mitchell Johnson has done so after realising his Aussie career is not shining as much as it was a couple of years ago

Richard Levi has been signed by the Reliance Money machine.

Cant beat a good bandwagon, flavour of the month type signing.

Was out at least 3 times in that T20 ton the other day if it was played on a proper sized ground.

That said, I have no problem with sides taking a low risk punt on cheap players like this. They'll get more out of young, hungry cheap players like Levi than say Smith, White, Symonds etc..

Mumbai worthy pre tourny favs for me.

TLM
Levi/Blizzard
Rayudu
Rohit Sharma
DK
Pollard/Franklin
Sathish
Harbhajan
Ohja
Malinga/Mitch Johnson
Munaf/RP Singh

Only worry will be keeping everyone happy. cant see how Mitch gets many games unless Malinga gets injured.

Satish is with Punjab now. They did a swap with Kartik. Would be Suman or Tare but the area definaately a weak link.

CSK and RCB as good IMO. Delhi and KKR can also beat them on a good day. MI's bggest asset is their bowling, batting still has some holes with only Rohit Sharma and maybe KP match winners in this format under tehse conditions. Compare that with RCB batting who have 4 match winners Dilly, GAYLE, Virat, AB and DD which I am in total awe of Jaya, Sehwag, KP, Warner and even Finch/Birt

Only 3 overseas slots on that team Lix. Levi/Bliz Pollard Malinga. Mitch will play ahead of Sathish. Bhaji and Mitch more than good enough to bat 7 and 8 in this format at this level.

i only put 3 overseas in !   must be losing it. yeah, would put mitch in at 7 then. very strong team.

What markets do you guys play on the IPL?

Normally my friend I play 6th over runs total.

Cheers
Lost

i only play the match market.

ipl is the shiznits

can't wait, only 36 sleeps left

Agree Rolo, IPL is the punters orgy. I do Match Odds,Innings Runs and tournament winner on BF. Do tons of spot with the bookies like 6 Overs, 12 Overs, batsmans runs Under/Over, Team Total Runs, Next batsman out etc.

Generally a good time to capitalise is early on when people are waiting to see how the teams gel so you get some good odds.

Ross Taylor to Delhi Daredevils from Rajasthan Royals

Delhi might want to make a move for a bowler. Royals not interested in competing by the looks of it.

DDs think they have the bowling sorted with the young injun quicks Aaron and Yadav + Pathan

no idea what these smaller teams are playing at giving away their best players to the bigger teams.

DC give away Ohja and KP
Punjab let DK go

now Raj happy to let Rosco leave. bonkers stuff given they're all under contract.

Dont understand Delhi also. In the auction they went for 5-6 Indian pacers, now they have gone for all hard hitting batsman and they obviously cant play all. Crzy line-up on paper

Big loss for RR. While Chandimal is as good as Rosco in these condiions (Chandimal will keep remember) it weakens the team significantly when Watson is not playing. Overseas players will be  Watto, Chandimal, Hodge and Botha and maybe Tait occassionallu, now when Watto goes they will have to play 1 out of Jacob Oram or Paul Collingwood whihc will further weaken there brittle line-up

Rajathank Royals get Owais Shah.

Good Sense prevails. I am a huge fan of this guy an shocked he is not in the ENgland T20 side.

RR doing the sensisble thing. Should have still kept Ross Taylor but this is not too bad.

fantastic signing for them agree

He's just as good a batsman as Taylor imo. has more shots when set. Taylor tends to just slog evrything through the line legside. Rosco obviously a far better fielder but Owais likely to be supurb value and win a fair few games for RR off his own bat.

Steve Smith signs for Pune. Nothing exceptional here as he is hardly better than the other foreign players.

Pune dont have a marquee player either Indian or foreign - Robin Uthappa was brilliant in IPL 2 and Angelo Matthews probably their best players. Angelo,Ryder, G Smith, Furgsusson, M Samuels, Parnell, Nathan McCullum, Hopes all decent but none of them with make it to a world X1

Bit late but thats what will be their downfall. No AB, Gayle, Kohli, Dhoni, Watson, Jaya, KP, Sanga, Sehwag, Warner, Morgan quality player

Punjab have the same problem but atleast they have David Hussey and Shaun Marsh

Luke Wright also signs for Pune. Looks like the Pune team management had a long meeting today being a holiday in INdiaa.

Good utility players. Should get a few games

You seam obsessed with batsman Rohit. Bowling far more important in any y20 competition. All sides got plenty of batsman capable of playing top class knocks on these surfaces and boundary sizes.

seem*

The ball seams or seems???

Nugget I actually think it is the opposite. Very few bowlers can contain runs on flat pitches like Malinga (Barring his last few games), Ajmal, Gul etc. .  Not disputing bowlers are extremely important but on high scoring pitches you need the batsman to score these big runs, where teams will score 170-200 regardless of the bowlers. Bowlers can only bowl 4 overs, batsman can bat 20 overs if they are good enough. On lively pitches wicket taking bowlers become more important though.

Bangalore were turned aroud by Gayle where they chased 170-200+ scores regularly and that cant be done by average batsman  (You will have 1 valthaty innings in 3 odd years)

Thats why the team managements across the world pay the big bucks for the Batsman

Batsmen get the big bucks cos peeps wanna see balls getting smacked out the park rather than a series of dot balls being bowled.

kind of agree with rohit there, at the start of the first ipl i also thought that bowlers were undervalued, but team owners will generally try to get the players who they think are going to make an impact and those seem to be batsmen at present. a team with 6 top quality t20 bats who are all in form is generally gonna come up on top against a team with 4 quality t20 bowlers and avg batters. malinga is a freak. world class t20 seamers like gul, morkel, nannes, johnson or whoever you fancy are gonna get faaarked against the likes of gayle and kohli in form on a run friendly pitch.

In all forms of cricket the team with the best bowling attacks generally win, that holds true for tests odi's and T20s. It is the reason why pakistan have constantly been a threat in T20 WC's despite the lack of a world class destructive batsman.

Last two WC T20 winners England - a victory built around a bowling attack that didn't conceed more than 149 in the entire tournament and Pakistan a team with no T20 batsman of note but an outstanding attack.

Bowlers win matches, batsman decide by how many.

In test cricket give me Steyn over Sanga/Kallis/Cook but in IPL Indian conditions give Gayle over Malinga. Watson, Jaya or Kohli over Gul and Johnson.

3 T20 World cup winners - Indian won the T20 world cup on the strength of their batting, England was acombination with KP and Morgan being brilliant while Pakistan was bowling dominated.

In the IPL batsman get the big buck, are the players retained by the franchises and the teams with the best btting line-ups have finished closer to the top in 4 seasons.

Banglore (Gayle, Kohli, AB) and Deccan (Steyn, Sharma, Ojha, Mishra) 2 examples of World Class batting line-ups and bowling line-ups in Indian conditions respectively

Bangalore were losing finalists, Deccan finished close to the bottom.

Chennai the best IPL teams have much better batsman than bowlers and they have been the most consistent team over the last 4 years of the IPL

Logic is simple, Batsman can bat all 20 overs, your best bowler can bowl only 4 overs so you cn play out a bowler but there is no hiding against the big Jamaican who opens and often bats 15-20 overs

The bangalore ground adds some value to your point i'll admit rohit, tough for all bowlers on that tarck with those boundaries last year.

IPL chairman buy the high profile batsman cos they are the star names and bring in the crowed, don't have too much faith in their ability to pick the best players i'm afraid.

Englands T20 was not built round Morgan and KP, it was built round a well drilled bowling attack that executed their skills to an exceptionally high level in that tournament, KP was the outstanding bat in that team but the bowlers are the reason they won it.

I woudln't describe any of sharma, steyn or ojha as world class in the T20 format especially on the tracks played on in the IPL, the sad fact about the tournament( A tournament i'm a massive fan of by the way) is that the only a handful of the very best T20 bowlers have played in it over the last 4 years.

No Afrid (the new improved bowling afridi), no ajmal, no Gul over the last few years, and no Swann, broad or Bresnan who have all been outstanding in the shorter form for the last few seasons. Johnson will play this year hopefully, who is a class act in T20. But I still maintain, the team that execute their bowling skills as a unit (not just 4 good overs from Malinga and 16 overs of dross from a bunch of Indian journey men) will be the team to beat.

Gayle although undoubtably an absolute monster in T20's has failed time after time to have a major impact on an international tournament. 1 basket and lots of eggs has never proved to be a winning tactic for domestic t20 teams.

At the Chinnaswammy batting quality makes very little difference.

The three t20 World cups are the perfect illustration. India had the 2nd best attack to Pakistan and won and Pakistan and England had the best attacks in their respective victories. England and Pakistan have the best T20 attacks and will be the sides to beat in the World Cup this year.

Look at the last two IPLs Chennai have the best or maybe the 2nd best (debatable with Mumbai) and have come out on top ahead of the great batting sides like Delhi D 09-10 and RCB 11. Champions League Mumbai had a god awful batting line up and still overcame RCB. NSW won the first one with a World Class attack and an average batting group. Chennai again had the best attack in 2010 edition. The best bowling sides win t20s. That is why in all likelihood you will see MI, CSK and KKR at the top again this year. 50ov/ODI cricket is the format where batsman have the most influence on the results imho.

england didnt have close to the best attack in the last t20 wc. australia's attack outperformed everybody. afridi had a very poor wc in terms of bowling as well. england won that wc with their strong batting display mostly KP, morgan, and bedwetter

Put yer Rod away rollers! . Yardy and Swann are world class T20 performers. no one could get sidebottoms slower ball bouncers away either and Broad always takes wkts.

Bowling wins tournies but happy if peeps think otherwise..

Also... Aussies best attack in the last T20?    Smith , Tait and Mitch is asking for trouble. At least 1 will go for 10+ an over every time.

not arguing that swann is class lixers, but in last wc australia clearly were in a different league with their bowling and did not win.

Nannes 14wkts at 13.00 econ of 7.0 (top wicket taker in tourney)
Smith 11 wkys at 14.8 econ of 7.0 (3rd highest wicket taker in tourney)
Mitch 10 wkts at 14.5 econ of 6.49
Tait 9 wkts at 14.5 econ of 5.53

hth

yeah yeah... blah blah... stats this and stats that...

At the business end of the tourny, y'know.. when the pressure is on... Aussies concede 191 to a flaky Pak side side and Eng chase down 148 in the final with 3 overs to spare

And you think their attack is better than England's ??  behave yourself!

no side scored over 150 against us all tourny

Anyway. My IPL thread seems to have been hijacked

Aus had more pace and bullied the Asians on a fast Kensington Oval surface. When they came across guys that preferred the pace they were made to look like mugs.Nowhere near as an intelligent or crafty as England.

Interesting that you like stats now Rolo as you didn't appear to like them when i put up my two world t20 sides.

Both SL and Pak had better attacks in the tournament.

Forum a Bit like the good old days where we would take a hypothetical unprovable largely ireelevant point and kill it to death. Last 1 I remember was whether the quality of IPL teams was the highest. We had similar people for and against the motion.

Anyways I will counter a few points

1. India won the world cup on the basis of their batting. To suggest they won it because of their bowling is ridiculous. Their batting had Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Yuvi in the form of his life. Bowling was Harbhajan, Sreesanth, RP Singh and Joginder Sharma (Remember him) so the point of India having the 2nd best bowling attack is laughable

2. England had a balance. If they had Swann and co also had 2 of the best T20 batsmna in KP and Morgan. Pakistan is a bowling dominated team

3. Chennai has the best batting-2nd best line-up with Vijay, Hussey, Raina, Dhoni, Morkel all darn good in Indian conditions. Bangalore came 2nd purely on the basis of 3-4 batsman in Gayle, Kohli, AB and Dilly.

4. Delhi had a crap batting line-up last IPL. Only had Sehwag and Warner (KP, Jaya, Taylor all came this year). They bought 6-7 pace bowlers and batting was very flaky. Watch Delhi reach the semis this year with their renewed batting line-up.Deccan an example of a strong bowling team but weak batting team and they performed poorly.

5. Top 4 batting teams were the top 4 teams in the last IPL. Delhi will join them.

6. England a good T20 team not only cause f their bowling but depth in batting with Swann at 10. makes ahuge difference

Read your post on Delhi 09-10. Yes they had the best line-up and they topped the group phase whcih is 14 games.

They lost in the knock-outs BTW

I really think Pune is a massive value at around 15. They will surely reach the semis

RP Singh, Irfan and Bhaji were sublime in that WC Rohit. Even Sree wasn't too expensive  

The top 4 teams last year were also the 4 best bowling teams though Rohit. As we know there is a massive gap in quality between the top and bottom IPL sides.

you had umar akmal in your team nuggs

You would probably have Kallis and his 'anchor role' that helps guide his teams to defeat instead no?

Rolo taken over the bigjoe role of the forum ?

i won't have kallis ffs
but i won't have akmal either.
gayle, jaya, kp, morgan, raina, warner, mcullum, watson - would have all of them before akmal

anyways, about batters vs bowlers in t20s - im not arguing that bowlers are not important, they are very important and have a huge impact. but to simply say that bowlers win matches and not batters, and that the ipl teams buy batters to sell tickets is a bit simplistic.

there is also massive evidence in favor of batters having a bigger impact in a tourney or match than bowlers. one is as rohit pointed out - a batsman on fire has more opportunity to continue to make an impact in a game ie does not have to stop scoring runs after 4 overs.

the other is very obvious - a bowler is 'capped' in terms of how shít he can bowl. lets make it an econ rate of 10. so even the biggest mug bowlers will generally get away with an econ rate of 10 or better in a tourney. while there is no such 'cap' for batters.

Every single on of those was in the two teams Rolo.

Actually Warner wasn't.

DOnt agree that the 4 semis finalist had the best 4 bowling attacks.

The top 4 bowling attacks in the tournament were the following
1. MI : Malinga, Munaf, Harby
2. Deccan Chargers : Steyn, Sharma, Ojha, Mishra
3 CSK : Ashwin, Bollinger, Ashwin, Jakati
4. RCB : Vettori, Arivind, Khan
ALong with
4. Pune : Alfonso, Taylor, Kartik, Rahul Sharma


KKR was quite average

Also INdian when the won the T20 world cup didnt bowl well. It was all batting. They struggled to defend 200ish against the Aussies due to the bowling attack. Against England Yuvi took the total beyong England and Saffers chocked. Pakistan batted worst than INdia in the finals

Bangalores season truned around when Gayle joined them. They had lost 4 out of 5 and Gayle came in and in his first game scored 100 and chased 170 easily and took it from there.

Much easier for average bowlers to perform when they have a huge score backing them. Thats what happened with India in 2007 and with RCB and KKR in IPL 2011. Reckon it will happen to Delhi this year

You seem to have missed out Dan Christian from the Deccan attack there Rohit... cant imagine why you'd do that

yeah DC's attack looked half decent on paper but Steyn is far more suited to tests/ODIs than T20s and Ohja was in awful form this time last year. They also played on a very flat track offering zero turn which was fkin dumb . Maybe if they swapped pitches with KKR the results would have been different cos KKR's attack is very suited to a slow low turner with Iqbal, Sakib and The Beast often opening the bowling

Ishant has been pretty useless in IPL too. Much more of a test bowler. If he and Christian bowl 8 overs you cant really say DCs attack is anything good.

The Outright market is out now . Those wishing for a punt on Delhi at decent odds may be a bit miffed to see them at 9/2 2nd jollies...

WOW Delhi seem to be the favourites along with CHennai.

KKR seem to be the value bet with 8.4 Back and 12 Lay. ANyone ready to take some of my money at 10ish??

DC, Kings and Pune look crappy and odds reflecting that

To be honest odds seem pretty spot on though at these early stages

Iqbal the Bangladesh opener has not been picked up by anyone, can anyone explain to me why ??
I'm a massive fan of his attacking style and thought he could open up the batting for someone like Deccan who seem very light on quality batsmen....

Am I right in thinking that these are the only International squads unavailable for periods during the IPL this year?

SL & England Test squads - Now until 7th April
West Indies & Aussie Test squads - Start until 27th April
England & West Indies test squads - 17th April - 11th May
England & West Indies ODI/T20 squads - 16th-24th May
Aussie & Irish ODI - 23rd May

Doesn't seem like too much disruption with a lot of the Windies IPL players not being in the Test squad while a lot of the English players as ever will miss quite a bit.  A fair few Aussies missing games as well early on.

Richie read somewhere recently that Iqbal was in negotiation with Pune

Ross Taylor definately going to miss the start of the IPL, so now thefamed DD line-up dont have Taylor, KP Jaya for a few games, Warner for 3 weeks and Birt for the tournament. Will rely heavily on Sehwag. Russell and Mvan De Merwe should also do well but the real firepower comes after 2-3 games.

Ishant is out so Deccan that had an outstanding attack now dont have Ojha and IShant. My bets for the last 2 places along with Punjab and Sanga the only real quality there.

what are NZ doing? I  don't see any fixtures for them after the current game

tamim signs for pune, could have him and smiffy open the batting and expect some serious runs

Pune seem desperate with Clarke and Tamim. ganguly and Clarke battig together when they need 10 an over will be fun.

Delhis woes continue with Russell out for a while. Thank God my KKR bet has gone though in the 1st game against Delhi

im just looking forward to the max mobile time outs... oh and that hot chick who owns a team...

preity zinta

Fatboy Smithy out the IPL to have ankle surgery. Fair play to him foresaking some easy dollars and wanting to be fully fit for the big test clash this summer.

Obviously greatly improves Pune's chances this year too..

At this point I really should be steaming into some decent prices for Top Pune bat but I've no idea who they will pick. Tamim? Bangers usually dont play much in the IPL no matter how good... Luke Wright?  Ditto for englanders..

Ryder?  mentally unsound, has his own shrink on standby. Do I really want to back him? Could start crying at any time.

Ganguly?  was crap in IPL 3 and 4. Nearly 40 now, hard to see him doing much.

Uthappa- Apparantly in great form domestically and sure to play every game. opened for india the other night

Pandey- hmm.. talented but gone backwards .

smiffy out a big blow for pune and for fans

Is there any live web coverage this year?

Pune off to a flier now without the dead weight of smiffy dragging em down..

Ganguly the dead wood to pull them donw though he captained brillintly yesterday.

Would like to see Luke Wright instead of Marlon Samuels who can then open