IPL team selections sometimes befuddle people. How on earth, they say, can Dan Christian be a better player than Faf du Plessis? Or how can Billy Stanlake be playing while Chris Gayle is in the dugout?
Most times, selections are explained on the basis of team balance but at the IPL, there are more variables than just that.
Since you can play only four overseas players, you have to use them to fill slots that you cannot with the seven Indian players you have at your disposal. And that is precisely what happened with Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
In what is emerging as a clear trend this year, and a worrisome trend I might add, teams are discovering that the Indian bowlers aren’t quite filling captains and team-owners with confidence.
And, with the young batsmen playing some wonderful innings, the move towards playing two specialist overseas bowlers becomes easier.
So, you see, your choice of overseas cricketer is governed, not by who is the best among those in the squad, but by the absence of a skill within the domestic contingent.
So, with RPS, most days, someone like du Plessis would walk in but because they needed to play both Imran Tahir and Adam Zampa, and with Ben Stokes the big hitting seam bowling option, they had to pick between du Plessis and Steve Smith. And, quite apart from the fact that Smith is in great form, it helps being captain!
Now, if RPS had more support for Ashoke Dinda (and even he has been expensive at the death), or had another quality spin bowling option, they could have played an extra overseas batsman.
So too with RCB whose woes with bowling have carried over into another season. While Tymal Mills is a fine bowler, he isn’t yet a Mitch Starc and Shane Watson is a year older.
In the first match they chose two Indian bowlers and soon found themselves looking around for options. Big Billy Stanlake presented himself as one, and with two good fast bowlers available, RCB looked a better bowling unit.
That meant though, that only one batsmen could play and with the return of AB de Villiers, there was no room for one of their most talismanic cricketers, Chris Gayle. It didn’t matter that Stanlake isn’t of the same stature as Gayle but he presented a skill that was lacking in the larger Indian pool.
Look at what happened to Gujarat Lions. With their balance severely dented by the absence of Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja, they chose to repose confidence in their Indian bowlers and played all four overseas openers available, even if it meant two of those were playing out of position. In the first two matches, they managed just one wicket and the bowling looked very inadequate.
It is a worry and while the spinners are doing well enough with Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav flying the flag for the next generation, there isn’t yet a go-to seamer other than the established ones, like Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, especially at the death. The big hitting seam bowling all-rounder is an even more endangered species with, really, only Hardik Pandya, answering to that description.
And so, as the IPL continues, expect that the fast bowling and all-rounder slots will get filled by overseas bowlers with Indians providing the batting and spin bowling options. It will mean that top overseas batsmen like du Plessis and Gayle will struggle to get enough games.
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