IPL predictions, anyone?

It’s that time of the year again when all eyes will be on the T20 action from the third season of the Indian Premier League.

There are many ways to try and look ahead to the IPL. You could be a fan, in which case your predictions are more expectations than anything else. You could go by your gut but you could miss out little facts. Or you could follow the Castrol Index, both the player index and the team index, to see if a prediction is possible.

The last of those is the least subjective so we will wait for it to throw up contenders. But till then, we could put an analyst’s hat on and see what we come up with. Royal Challengers Bangalore are looking the best balanced, if anything they have almost too much choice. But they have covered for Ross Taylor and Cameron White very well by signing on one of the most exciting players in the world, Eoin Morgan. They have strong Indian players, especially with the bat with Dravid, Pandey, Kohli and Uthappa and I think have made a very wise pick with S Sriram in case spinners start doing well and they have no room for Roelof van der Merwe. It seems the best structured team of the tournament.

The weakest are the Rajasthan Royals. And it cannot help that Graeme Smith is injured. Warne is moving on, Mascarenhas looks good but his numbers are ordinary but as leader, Warne has always come up with something special. And I think the dark horse of the tournament could well be Shaun Tait. Kamran Khan is fit apparently and so who knows the mavericks might still surprise us. But on paper, they look in dire need of Indian batsmen.

The defending champions have a pretty similar balance to their team this year as they had last year. That means they rely too heavily on RP Singh, Rohit Sharma and Pragyan Ojha since there seem to be no back-up players there. A bit vulnerable, as indeed are Kings XI with injury and availability.

I think there are four middle-of-the-road teams in Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils. Of these, the Daredevils have possibly the most explosive batting line-up and would be disappointed not to make it to the semis. At this stage, it could come down to two of Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata for the last two slots.