IPL IV Auctions

I had been putting off starting a blog for a long time because I wasn't convinced that I had a good enough topic to write about, but what better topic than cricket to start ! And what's spicier in cricket than the IPL ! A few days ago, I saw the auction for the fourth season of the IPL and to be pretty honest, was dazed on the first day and was bored to death on the second……..

The breakneck speed of the auction on the first day was a bit too fast for my taste and I couldn't understand a lot of buys after the lunch break because I had forgotten who had bought whom prior to the break. And this is my attempt at making sense of the auction. I tried to comment on Cricinfo.com but was discouraged by the limit of 999 words, so I thought - "Hey, why not start a blog as it gives me no restrictions about how much I write plus I can convince a couple of my friends to read it and provide some insight." So here it goes........

Retentions

Player retention is a controversial issue. Initially, when the IPL was started, the original auction was for 3 years and it was said that there would be fresh auctions for IPL 4. But after IPL 3, Chennai and Mumbai figured out that if auction was to occur again, all the other franchisees would want Sachin and Dhoni, so their chances of holding on to these two would be slim. So what did they do? They introduced this clause of retention.

How were these two franchisees able to pull off such a heist? For that, the politics of the BCCI have to be understood. There are cricket associations in almost all of the states of India (and some states have multiple associations) and it is these associations that make up the BCCI. These associations can nominate people for the posts of BCCI President, Secretary, Treasurer etc during the annual BCCI elections and all the members vote to elect one of the nominees to each of the executive posts. For some years now, there have been two big groups in the BCCI – one is led by the Cricket Association of Bengal (Jagmohan Dalmiya, President of the CAB is the leader) and the other is led by the Mumbai Cricket Association (Sharad Pawar was the leader a few years ago when the Dalmiya regime in the BCCI came to an end and Pawar was elected President of the BCCI). One key ally of the MCA is the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. After Pawar’s tenure ended and he was elected to become Vice President and subsequently, the President of the ICC (a post he is still holding), Shashank Manohar, one more guy from the MCA was elected by the associations to the post of President. The post of Secretary, the second most important post went to N Srinivasan from the TNCA. Both Manohar and Srinivasan are holding these posts till date and hence, the MCA and the TNCA can influence or manipulate the policies of the BCCI and the IPL. Furthermore, Srinivasan is the owner of the Chennai Super Kings. So when MI and CSK wanted to retain players, it was easily ensured that the player retention clause was approved.

The retention clause is itself very confusing. It states that “For the first player retained, 1.8 million will be deducted from the total purse of 9 mil $ a franchisee has at the auction.” Similarly, 1.3 mil, 0.9 mil and 0.5 mil would be cut from the available amount of a franchisee during the auction for subsequent players retained. Note the text in italics. It states that 1.8 mil would be cut from the franchisee’s purse for a player retained. This doesn’t mean a franchisee is required to pay the first player 1.8 mil for retaining him. It simply means that some amount would be deducted for retaining the players. MI are not paying Sachin 1.8 mil. I read in some report that the actual amount they are paying him is 3.2 mil. Similarly, Pollard and Malinga would also be getting about 2 to 2.5 mil and Harbhajan about 1.5 mil from the Mumbai Indians. This repot makes sense. But the players who are released to the auction will be paid the same amount they are bought for during the auction.

Players retained

MI is the team I support in the IPL (reason : Sachin) and they retained Sachin, Bhajji, Pollard and Malinga. I wasn’t convinced that Bhajji should have been retained and wanted Zaheer to be retained instead. But Bhajji is close to Sachin and that must have helped him. I had no problems with the other retentions as all of them are proven performers.

RR retained Warne, Watson and let Yusuf go. Were they out of their minds !!! Do they even want to create a good team ? Unf***ingbelievable. The only explanation I can think of is that Yusuf must have figured out his income would increase if he came out into the bidding. Plus RR don’t look like they can win any more trophies and Yusuf has a better chance of doing so with other teams.

CSK retained Dhoni, Morkel, Vijay and Raina. I thought it was a good retention with Dhoni and Raina being obvious, Morkel being a good performer and Vijay brining in the local Tamil fan base.

RCB retained Kohli. I think it was a good move as he is young and is a future captain plus a good performer. But they could have also retained Steyn and even Manish Pandey and/or Kallis. They obviously knew Kumble wouldn’t continue as a player in the IPL and hence did not retain him.

DD retained Sehwag. I thought Gambhir should also have been retained, but Delhi might not have thought he was worth 1.3 mil (amount to retain the second player). Or maybe Gambhir went the Yusuf way and wanted an increase in salary. Or both these reasons combined.

KKR didn’t retain anyone and I thought it was wise.

KXIP also didn’t retain anyone. They clearly thought Yuvraj had to go because of his attitude and there wasn’t anyone else worth deducting 1.8 mil from their pool for.

DC didn’t retain anyone as there wasn’t anyone worth 1.8 mil in their team.

The Auctions

I will try to go through all the 10 teams (in no particular order) and try to understand why they did what they did. But first, I want to make one point clear. Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard did NOT sign the central contract with the West Indies Cricket Board because they wanted to play T20s first and not test matches for the West Indies. And I am not aware if anything has changed this. But it seems the franchisees are unaware of this development and fearing for their availability haven’t signed Gayle while Bravo went for base price to CSK.

And for the information of those who do not know this, a team can have a maximum of 4 foreign players in a match. Rest 7 have to be Indians.

MI bought Pollard, Malinga, Symonds, Jacobs, Henriques, Franklin, McKay and Blizzard from the foreigners. The Indian players are Sachin, Harbhajan, Rohit and Munaf. Batting (Sachin and Jacobs, Rohit, Symonds, Pollard) is very strong and bowling (Malinga, Munaf, Harbhajan) looks decent. Letting Bravo go and getting Symonds in his place was an excellent move. Getting Franklin and Henriques was a cover if Pollard will not be available during the IPL (which is very unlikely as he is not part of West Indies test team unlike Gayle and Bravo). I quite like the way this franchise has gone about the auction. They have only 4 excellent foreigners and no other foreigner of that standard. This means that no big names have to sit out during the IPL matches (like McGrath and Vettori had to sit out for DD during the first 3 years). Rohit is a local boy and should be seen as a future captain of the team. The potential domestic signings like Rayadu, R Sathish and Ali Murtaza are expected to contribute to batting and bowling. Still, the bowling looks one or two players short from becoming very good and this might bother MI during the IPL. And there is no guarantee that Rayadu might come back to Mumbai and not join DC. Still, I see MI as one of the semi finalists (ranks 1-4) of this year’s IPL.

RR bought (or retained) Warne, Watson, Ross Taylor, Tait, Botha and Collingwood from the foreigners. Indians bought were Dravid and Pankaj Singh. I don’t know how they are going to be competitive in this edition of the IPL. And if Australia get a tour during the IPL and Watson and Tait have to miss some of the tournament, they are doomed. I think they are again relying on domestic players like Kamran Khan, Asnodkar etc to take them the distance. Remember, Rajasthan have reached the final of the Ranji Trophy this year (and have defeated Mumbai in the semis), so they must have some excellent domestic players up their kitty. Still, I am not going to back them and think they will be among the last (ranks 8-10) teams in the IPL.

CSK tried (and succeeded) to buy back most of the players they released into the auction. The Indian players are Dhoni, Raina, Vijay, Ashwin, Badrinath, Joginder, Saha and Tyagi. The foreigners are Hussey, Bollinger, Morkel, Bravo, Styris, Bailey, du Plessis, Hilfenhaus, Randiv and Kulasekara. The four foreigners in the eleven will be Hussey, Bollinger, Morkel and Bravo. Theirs has traditionally been a spinner dominated bowling attack and hence Randiv has also got a chance to get in as a replacement for Muralitharan, whom they weren’t able to retain. They let go of a foreign all rounder (Jacob Oram) and managed to get Dwayne Bravo instead. That’s a good thing. Bailey and du Plessis are also all rounders and can be seen as replacements to Morkel and Bravo. Hilfenhaus and Kulasekara will be back-ups for Bollinger and Styris for Hussey. Their policy is simple – stick to their very successful team from previous years. But since they have active Australian members in the team, they might not be able to field Hussey and Bollinger in all of their matches. Overall, the batting (Vijay with someone, Raina, Hussey, Dhoni, Bravo and Morkel) is very strong. The bowling is also strong with Bollinger, Morkel, Bravo, Ashwin, Jakati (expected to be signed from the domestic players) and Joginder. I say this team will be one of the semi finalists (ranks 1-4) in the IPL.

RCB bought de Villiers, Dilshan, Vettori, Nannes, van der Wath, Vandiar, Pomersbach, Langeveldt, Nuwan Pradeep and Rossouw from the overseas players while the Indian ones are Kohli, Zaheer, Saurabh Tiwary, Mithun, Kaif and Pujara. They seem intent on assembling a South African foreign player base in the IPL. Out went Kallis and Steyn and in came de Villiers, Langeveldt, van der Wath and Vandiar. They have gone out of their way to try and shed the tag of ‘test team with old players’ by focusing on youth this time. Dravid and Kallis, relatively slow players, are no longer there. Instead, Kohli was retained and 9 out of their 16 players are below 25 years of age. de Villiers for Kallis is an excellent choice. Kallis hardly bowls these days and his batting was very slow during IPL 3 (strike rate 115.0) which brought pressure on the middle order. And they have Zaheer as the bowling spearhead instead of Steyn now. Nannes, de Villiers, Dilshan and Vettori should be the foreign players. The batting (Dilshan and Manish Pandey, Kohli, de Villiers, Tiwary, Kaif and Pujara) is very good. Bowling (Zaheer, Nannes, Mithun and Vettori) is also very strong. I think this team will be one of the semi finalists (ranks 1-4) in IPL 4.

DD bought the following foreigners – Warner, Frylinck, Finch, Hopes, Ingram, McDonald, Morkel, van der Merwe, Travis Birt and Matthew Wade. Indian players are Sehwag, Irfan, Umesh Yadav, Venugopal, Naman Ojha and Dinda. Warner and Hopes are the only other certainties to be part of the starting eleven. Rest are all at the same level to me. They made a mess of this auction, letting Dilshan, Vettori, Nannes and de Villiers go to RCB. Vettori must have become frustrated as he didn’t play in many matches for DD in the first 3 years (remember, he has the second best economy rate in T20 internationals after Umar Gul). The bowling is very weak (Irfan, Umesh Yadav and Dinda) and hence, Morkel should get a foreigner slot in the eleven. I can’t see who the other foreigner might be. Batting after the opening pair of Sehwag and Warner looks weak too and this team will lose most of its matches in the IPL and end up at the bottom (ranks 8-10) of the points able in the IPL.

KKR set the trend during the auction, buying Gambhir for 2.4 and Yusuf for 2.1 mil. Other Indians are Manoj Tiwary, Unadkat and Balaji. Foreigners are Kallis, Lee, Morgan, Haddin, Shakib, James Pattinson and ten Doeschate. The foreigners to start should be Kallis, Lee, Haddin and Shakib/ten Doeschate. I expect Shakib to edge out ten Doeschate from the starting eleven as there are no other spinners. Batting (Gambhir and Kallis, Tiwary, Shakib, Haddin and Yusuf) looks strong while bowling (Lee, Unadkat, Balaji, Shakib, Kallis) is about average. If they can find another keeper and take ten Doeschate (a very good all rounder) instead of Haddin, the bowling will get more strengthened. And the Ganguly issue is mystifying. Do they expect the support of the Kolkata crowd if Ganguly does not play for them? But they have a good team anyways and I see them as one of the semi finalists (ranks 1-4) of this IPL.

KXIP bought Gilchrist, David Hussey, Shaun Marsh, Broad and Ryan Harris from amongst the foreigners. Indians are Dinesh Karthik, Praveen, Chawla and Nayar. Gilchrist, Marsh, Karthik, Hussey and Nayar is an average batting lineup and puts too much stress on Gilchrist, Marsh and Hussey to contribute explosive innings. Since the feud last year was between Sangakkara and Yuvraj, I thought they might want to retain one of these two and let the other guy go. But they let both go and will suffer for it. Bowling is also average because only one of Broad or Harris can play in addition to Praveen and Chawla. Nayar is a colossal waste and didn’t deserve 800,000. I think this will be one of the bottommost teams in the IPL (ranks 8-10).

DC bought Pietersen, Sangakkara, Cameron White, Duminy, Steyn, Christian, Lumb, Chris Lynn and Theron. Indian players are Dhawan, Gony, Ishant, Amit Mishra and Ojha. Bowling is either good (Steyn, Mishra and Ojha) or bad (Ishant and Gony). Batting looks average because they have only one Indian and can play only three foreigners out of Pietersen, Sanga, White, Christian and Duminy (as Steyn will definitely take up a foreigner’s slot). They will want Ambati Rayudu to play for them (his home team) during the domestic signings. Letting Gilchrist go and getting Sangakkara in his place wasn’t a good swap deal with KXIP. They have lots of money left for the domestic signings. I think this team will be in the middle part (ranks 5-7) of the points able in the IPL.

PW (Pune Warriors) signed on Graeme Smith, Ryder, Jerome Taylor, Ferguson, Matthews, Paine, Parnell, Nathan McCullum, Mitchell Marsh and Alfonso Thomas from overseas and Yuvraj, Uthappa, Nehra and Murali Kartik from Indian players. Smith, Paine, Ferguson and Matthews would be my first choice playing foreigners as Taylor will probably not be available during the next two editions of the IPL. Batting (Smith and Paine, Ferguson, Yuvraj, Uthappa and Mathews) looks very strong. Bowling (Nehra, Matthews, Kartik and Ferguson) looks 2 more bowlers short. Performance will depend on what domestic players they sign. I think this team will finish at the middle (ranks 5-7) of the table.

TK (Team Kochi has no official name I am aware of) bought Jayawardane, Muralitharan, McCullum, Hodge, Klinger, Steven Smith, Steve O’Keefe, Shah, Perera and John Hastings from the overseas players. Indian players are Sreesanth, Vinay Kumar, Parthiv, Jadeja, Laxman, RP Singh and Powar. Batting (Parthiv and McCullum, Jayawardane, Hodge, Laxman) looks over-reliant on McCullum and Jayawardane. Bowling is average with Murali, Jadeja and Vinay Kumar being good while Sreesanth and RP being unpredictable. However, I think due to individual brilliance of Jayawardane or McCullum or Murali or the Indian fast bowlers, they will be able to win some matches and finish at the middle (ranks 5-7) of the points table.

Domestic Signings

The backbone of the teams has been assembled and lets see over the week what domestic players they sign up to complete the squads. I expect a lot of fighting over Manish Pandey (RCB and TK), Ambati Rayadu (MI and DC), R Sathish (MI and CSK), Tirumalsetti Suman (DC and TK) and Ali Murtaza (MI and RR).

Predictions

I tip Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata to reach the semis (already mention earlier). MUMBAI WILL WIN THE FINAL. For sentimental reasons, I want Kolkata to also make the final (as they have performed horribly in the past editions of the tournament). If I were to make an unbiased prediction, I would tip Chennai being the other side making the final.

P.S. This blog has taken the best part of 2 nights to finish and I have made changes after seeing updates about the IPL. So there might be some errors and I will be happy if people point these (if any) out.