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Points Table (updated till EOD 17 April 2022)

There's a quote in English that says "To win some, you must lose some."

This saying fits perfectly on KKR, DC, CSK, MI in the current scenario who lie in the bottom half of the 10-team points table. The analogy that I am going to present in this blog may sound extremely weird and absurd to some but upon thinking very deeply one may realise that the analogy that I am going to present in this column has some sort of weight in the argument. The analogy might be proved wrong going forward in the tournament but cricket is a team sport where on some days even individual brilliance with very little support from the others may win you games. A prime example of that was witnessed in the last game that happened where David Miller's displayed the epitome of his individual brilliance by scoring an unbeaten 94 runs off 51 balls to pull off a massively improbable win. The little support that every player requires was provided to him by the stand-in skipper Rashid Khan who made a brute 40 off just 21 deliveries.

ANALOGY: 4 RETENTIONS

There were only four franchises that opted for their full quota of retentions namely - KKR, DC, CSK & MI.

All these four franchises had built a great squad and had performed well in the recent years but they had to let go of most of their players owing to the mega auctions which created a feeling of uneasiness in these four franchises. It's not easy for great sides to let go of their great pool of talent and hence they opted to retain the maximum number of players that they could have whilst complying with the retention rules but there was a twist to it.

MI, CSK & KKR had to spend 42 crores for these 4 retentions which meant they spent 46.67% of their total budget of 90 crores on just 4 players which meant they spent 53.33% of their remaining budget on buying 21 players each. The same figure in case of DC was 42.5 crores which meant they had to spend 47.22% of their total budget on the 4 retentions and they spent 52.78% of their remaining budget on buying 20 players.

The reason why MI & CSK languish at the rock bottom of the table even below DC & KKR, the other two sides that opted for four retentions, is that both these sides spent a hefty amount of sum on getting back the services of a single player, i.e., Ishan Kishan (15.25 crores) & Deepak Chahar (14 crores). MI additionally spent another 8 crores on Jofra Archer, who was already unavailable for the 2022 season going into the auctions. They also bagged Tim David for 8.25 crores.

It meant that MI spent 73.5 crores which was 81.67% of their total budget on just 7 players of which only 6 were available. CSK too spent 56 crores which was 62.22% of their total budget on just 5 players of which only 4 were made available to them as Deepak Chahar got ruled out of the tournament owing to an injury.

With most of the bucks being spent on a handful of names, there occurred a huge imbalance in terms of quality in the other half of the squad so the role of the talent scouting team became even more huge to rope in relatively unknown guys who could perform at the grandest of stages in league cricket. MI seem to have done that right with the inclusion of Tilak Varma and Dewald Brevis who have seemed mighty impressive but the hitch was that it's not practically possible for the talent scouting team to unearth 3-4 players of the calibre of Bumrah, Hardik, Krunal, Tilak, Dewald in a single season but what's possible is to unearth around 1-2 gems in a season which MI's talent scouting team has already achieved for this season and they would look to achieve the same goal from scratch for the next season. The reason why MI are doing so poorly despite scouting two great young talents is that amongst the 4 sides they had the most amount of purse imbalance as they spent 81.67% of their purse on just 6 available players.

THOUGHT: DID KKR, DC, CSK & MI DO A BLUNDER BY MAKING 4 RETENTIONS?

RESPONSE: The answer to that is a big no. There's another saying that goes by "The sweetest of fruits take the most amount of time to ripe." MI's skipper Rohit Sharma has been a prime example of that at the international stage. Coming to IPL, it was a well-played out strategy by these 4 franchises who have a vision to achieve greater things in the longer scheme of things rather than focusing on the immediate. If one takes a close look at MI and CSK, one will find that despite having a disappointing season till now both these possess a batting order that looks great. CSK will have to rope in the highly talented wicketkeeper batsman in Narayan Jagadeesan in the future in place of MS Dhoni but barring that all seems great on the batting front going into the future for these two franchises. The issue that these two sides have primarily faced is of their bowling. Upon taking a look at the bowling front of these two franchises, one will find that there lie around 2 bowling slots that need to be upskilled in order for them to become an absolutely fantastic side on paper.

The issue that goes with KKR and DC is that KKR has a highly unreliable and inconsistent, hit or miss kind of a batting order while DC is lacking a finisher like Shimron Hetmyer and though they bought Rovman Powell for the same purpose, he just hasn't arrived to the party. Apart from this, DC are certainly a quality bowler short and Mitchell Marsh's late arrival along with his hip injury made them feel the void of the absence of Marcus Stoinis even more.

With the mini-auction set to happen next year, expect all these 4 sides to upskill their slots that require work to be done.

THOUGHT: COULD THESE 4 FRANCHISES HAVE DONE BETTER THIS SEASON HAD THEY LET GO OF SOME MORE OF THEIR BIG NAMES?

RESPONSE: Yes, all these 4 franchises could certainly have done better in this particular season had they let go of some more of their big names but that would have made these 4 franchises lose the advantage they will have on the other 4 franchises (2 new franchises not included) in the longer scheme of things as KKR, DC, CSK & MI will most likely become superior sides once they upskill the few slots that they have had troubles with in the upcoming mini-auctions. There's a saying which states "the smartest of brains invest in the future while the ordinary simply invest in the present." The 11 IPL titles present between the three most successful IPL sides in MI, CSK & KKR prove that the support staff of these franchises have no ordinary brains. The continuous success of DC in the recent years make them fall under the same category.

The reason why I have left out the two new franchises in GT and LSG in the above post mini-auction comparison-based aspect is that though both these sides had a maximum limit of only 3 draft picks as compared to 4 for the pre-existing franchises, they got an advantage as compared to the pre-existing franchises as both these sides got a way wider pool of players to select their drafts from as compared to the pre-existing franchises who had to pick their 4 players from a pool of just 20-25 players. This doesn't mean that the retentions made by the pre-existing franchises were not worth the money but what it meant was that the two new franchises would get more value for money with respect to their draft picks as they had a pool comprising hundreds of players to choose from and this is why even if all goes by KKR, DC, CSK & MI's plan, they will have no advantage over these two new franchises who got sort of a great head start to begin their proceedings. This is the reason why the top 2 positions in the points table have been occupied by these new franchises. Though, these two may or may not end up in the top two positions at the end of league stage but what it has ensured is that these two will certainly have a good season this year around.

THOUGHT: ALL THE 8 PRE-EXISTING FRANCHISES WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE PART IN THE MINI-AUCTIONS TO FIX THEIR LOOPHOLES, THEN WHY DO I CLAIM THAT KKR, DC, CSK & MI WILL BECOME SUPERIOR SIDE POST THE MINI-AUCTION?

RESPONSE: It's due to the fact that the sides who used lesser number of retentions will have lesser number of big match winners than a side who utilized their retention quota to the fullest. The impact of these big match winners in a side with loopholes is way different from the impact that these guys can have in a completely balanced side and this is what separates KKR, DC, CSK & MI from the other 4 pre-existing franchises. For example, a Jasprit Bumrah is looking toothless as the opposition are easily playing him out and targeting the other 4 MI bowlers but when someone like Jofra Archer will bowl alongside him in tandem with Jaydev Unadkat and two other medium quality bowlers to support them then the opposition won't be able to afford to play out 8-12 overs because that will make the total score very less and hence would have no other option than to target Bumrah to some extent as well and that's exactly where Bumrah can have a way greater impact on the course of the game.

Obviously, there are a lot of other factors that lie in the path of KKR, DC, CSK & MI. They will need to have a good strategy for the mini-auctions and will have to be very wise while releasing the players before the mini-auctions. Their scouting teams will also have to deliver in order for these 4 sides to deliver the claim made above. It might even take them more than one mini-auction in order to deliver to their fullest but if they play smart enough, KKR, DC, CSK & MI should be able to achieve it the next season itself.

DISCLAIMER: This article was a piece of an extensively thought-out analogy. Please like and share this article as it will encourage us to write more amount of critical thinking and analogy-based articles which will be helpful for our readers as well to critically think about such analogies while following the sport that they admire, i.e., cricket. The writer's thoughts may differ from the opinion of the masses and this article was just a piece of critical analysis behind the poor start in this IPL by the same 4 franchises that used up their complete quota of retentions. The readers can comment their opinion in the comments box present below.