Was planning to take some time today to do a bit of form line analysis but it looks like for the local players, the last cricket has been the Ranji Trophy, which for most teams ended two months ago! So the relevance of what I can find is pretty unclear.
Some tidbits I did find, though:
* Mayank Agarwal managed 249 in a semi final
* Prithvi Shaw has a 379 to his name!
* Jagadeesan's strike rate for the season was 97, opening and keeping
* 39 wickets in 6 matches for Ravi Bishnoi, average 15, SR 39
The first two rounds look that way. Having 10 teams we can also start with a good spread of players.
The DGRs can be focused on in two blocks with a mini reset break in between.
Round 3-7 we can field a maximum of 28 DGR players.
Rounds 10-13 we can field a maximum of 25 DGR players.
Note that the above doesn’t factor in boosts which can be used to squeeze an extra DGR in.
They are pretty hard sections to navigate, so a lot would need to go our way to come close to getting maximum benefit from DGRs without weakening our teams.
The first two rounds look that way. Having 10 teams we can also start with a good spread of players.
The DGRs can be focused on in two blocks with a mini reset break in between.
Round 3-7 we can field a maximum of 28 DGR players.
Rounds 10-13 we can field a maximum of 25 DGR players.
Note that the above doesn’t factor in boosts which can be used to squeeze an extra DGR in.
They are pretty hard sections to navigate, so a lot would need to go our way to come close to getting maximum benefit from DGRs without weakening our teams.
Indeed, there do seem to be a number of byes either side of the doubles, which makes things trickier!
It seems to open up a bit more in that second batch of doubles.
Maybe early cash gen helps to position us well for that run, because we can get the best double players with fewer constraints. It should also help with getting the best guys in for the singles, which are fairly numerous.
I just read through the CSK preview and I'm struggling to even figure out what their XI looks like. Looks like they have a lot of players arriving late or coming back from injury.
I don't actually recognise a lot of these Indian players - obviously Dhoni and Jadeja will play, Gaikwad opens and Deepak Chahar is a strong new ball bowler from memory... but they're missing at least three OS players for game one and not many of their locals are well known at all.
As for Gujarat, you know I'm taking Rashid, but Shubman Gill looks excellent value at $514k - has an ODI double hundred this year, so is in excellent form. For context, given the salary cap of 9 million, the average player price should be $562k to fill a squad, so we can think of that as the $125k player from the BBL.