5-11 February 2018 - 16-min

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5 - 11 February, 2018
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Sports
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NEW DELHI TIMES
How do the IPL teams stack up after the auction?
Part I- Review of Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal
Challengers Bangalore
◆◆By NDT Bureau
@NewDelhiTimes
info@newdelhitimes.com
he auction for the Indian Premier
League (IPL), the most competitive
T20 league in the world, saw some
aggressive bidding by the eight franchisees.
A whopping Rs. 431.7 crore was spent in
total by the eight franchisees. In this two
part article, New Delhi Times takes a look
at how the teams have stacked up after the
2018 IPL auction
Mumbai Indians (MI): Defending Champions
Mumbai Indians retained three of India’s
best T20 players in Rohit Sharma, Hardik
Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah and exercised
their Right to Match cards to retain Keiran
Pollard and Krunal Pandya. MI has a strong
batting line up with stroke makers like
Rohit Sharma, Evin Lewis, Saurabh Tiwary
and Ishan Kishan. Pollard and the Pandya
brothers are quality all-rounders who can
turn a contest in a matter of minutes. Pat
Cummins, Mustafizur Rahman, Jason
Behrendroff and Pradeep Sangwan lend
depth to the bowling department. Mumbai
though lack a spinner with pedigree in their
squad and will expect Akila Dananjaya to
deliver the goods.
MI squad: Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah,
Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Mustafizur
Rehman, Pat Cummins, Suryakumar Yadav,
Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rahul Chahar,
Evin Lewis, Saurabh Tiwary, Ben Cutting,
Pradeep Sangwan, JP Duminy, Jason
Behrendoff, Tajinder Singh Dhillon, Sharad
Lumba, Siddesh Lad, Tare, Mayank Markande,
Akila Dhananjaya, Anukul Roy, Mohsin
Khan, Nidheesh.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK): CSK have
clearly gone for experience in the IPL auction.
The team has successfully managed to retain
impact players like MS Dhoni, Suresh
Raina, Ravinder Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo and
Faf Du Plessis who are proven performers in
IPL. CSK look strong with plenty of depth in
every department. Dhoni, du Plessis, Raina,
Bravo, Murali Vijay Shane, Watson, Kedar
Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu and Jadeja provide
a formidable batting line up. Shardul Thakur
and Deepak Chahar are good domestic fast
bowlers while Lungi Ngidi and Mark Wood,
though inexperienced in Indian conditions
CSK have quality spinners in Karn Sharma,
Imran Tahir, Harbhajan Singh and Mitchell
Santner.
CSK squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni,
Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Faf du
Plessis, Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo,
Shane Watson, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati
Rayadu, Imran Tahir, Shardul Thakur,
Jagadeesan Narayan, Mitchell Santner,
Deepak Chahar, Asif K M, Lungisani Ngidi,
Dhruv Shorey, Kanish Seth, Murali Vijay,
Mark Wood, Kshitiz Sharma, Monu Singh
and Chaitanya Bishno
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): With
19 players, KKR have the smallest squad
among all the 8 IPL franchisees. However,
the team has a number of T20 impact players
like hard hitting all-rounder Andre Russell,
spinner Sunil Narine who is also turning out
to be a batting revelation, Kuldeep Yadav,
Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn and Piyush
Chawla.
KKR have also invested in three India Under
19 star cricketers – Shubham Gill, Shivam
Mani and Sudhakar Kamlesh Nagarkoti.
The addition of Australian pacers Mitchell
Johnson and Mitchell Stark provide the
spark in fast bowling department. KKR may
face a problem though on account of their
short squad if one of their key performers
gets injured or loses form.
KKR squad: Sunil Narine, Andre Russell,
Chris Lynn, Mitchell Starc, Dinesh Karthik,
Robin Uthappa, Kuldeep Singh Yadav,
Piyush Chawla, Nitish Rana, Kamlesh
Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Mitchell Johnson,
Shubman Gill, Ranganath Vinay Kumar,
Rinku Singh, Cameron Delport, Javon
MCG to host women’s, men’s T20
he men’s and women’s finals of the
Twenty20 Cricket World Cup in 2020
will be played at the Melbourne Cricket
Ground as Cricket Australia affords both
tournaments equal billing.
For the first time, the men’s and women’s
tournaments will be played as stand-alone
events in the same country.
The 10-team women’s event will run from
Feb. 21 to March 8 and the 16-team men’s
tournament from Oct. 18 to Nov. 15.
Both semifinals of the women’s tournament
will be played in Sydney while the men’s
semifinals will be split between the Sydney
Cricket Ground and Adelaide Oval.
Finals will then take place at the 100,000-
seat MCG, Australia’s largest stadium and
venue for the final of the 2015 men’s oneday
international World Cup, which drew
93,000 fans.
A total of 13 stadiums in eight Australian
cities — Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide,
Canberra, Geelong, Hobart, Perth and
Brisbane — will host matches during the
two events.
World Cup finals
The men’s tournament has been expanded
so that the previous Super 10 stage now
becomes a Super 12 with eight automatic
qualifiers, and the top two teams from two
four-team pools which will contest the
group stage.
The International Cricket Council is hoping
the women’s final will draw a world record
crowd for a women’s sports event after
24,000 attended the final of the women’s
50-overs World Cup at Lord’s in July last
year. The Australian record for a women’s
sports event is 41,000, which attended a
soccer match in Adelaide in 1929. The world
record is 90,185 for the women’s FIFA
World Cup final in 1999.
“Australia is a sporting nation, with diverse
and passionate fans who love cricket,”
organizing committee chief executive Nick
Hockey said.
“We’ve designed ICC World T20, comprising
stand-alone women’s and men’s events, to
be more inclusive, more accessible and more
connected than ever before so that everyone
can join in.”
The Australian women’s
team has won three of the
previous five Twenty20
World Cups and will be
attempting to win back
the world crown they
lost to the West Indies in
2016.
The West Indies are also the
current men’s champions.
Credit : Associated Press (AP)
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Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB): RCB
led by Indian captain Virat Kohli will be
looking to end the title brought. Apart from
Kohli, RCB retained AB De Villiers and
promising Indian batsmen Sarfaraz Khan.
RCB have plenty of choices for all positions
this season.
Brendon McCullum and Quniton De Kock
are the wicket-keeping choices while the
squad has all round depth with the inclusion
of Moeen Ali, Colin de Grandhomme, and
Chris Woakes. In the bowling department,
RCB have a quality T20 spinner in
Yuzvendra Chahal.
Umesh Yadav, Nathan Coulter-Nile,
Mohammad Siraj and Tim Southee provide
a talented pool of fast bowlers. RCB,
however need to end their over-reliance on
Kohli and AB De Villiers to be considered
title contenders.
RCB squad: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers,
Sarfaraz Khan, Chris Woakes, Yuzvendra
Singh Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Brendon
McCullum, Washington Sundar, Navdeep
Saini, Quinton De Kock, Mohammed
Siraj, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Colin De
Grandhomme, M. Ashwin, Parthiv Patel,
Moeen Ali, Mandeep Singh, Manan Vohra,
Pawan Negi, Tim Southee, Kulwant Khejroliya,
Aniket Choudhary, Pavan Deshpande,
Anirudha Ashok Joshi.
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Pliskova, Kvitova to
lead Czechs against
Switzerland
he Czech Republic will have its top
players available next weekend for the
Fed Cup against Switzerland.
Fifth-ranked Karolina Pliskova, who reached
the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, will
lead the host Czechs on Feb. 10-11 on an
indoor hard court at the O2 Arena. Two-time
Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova will
return to the team for the first time since
recovering from injuries suffered during a
knife attack at her home in December 2016.
Also, Barbora Strycova and Lucie Safarova
have been named in the team by captain Petr
Pala.
The winner will face Germany or Belarus in
the semifinals in April.
Credit : Associated Press (AP)
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