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Friday, July 09, 2010

IPL: Auction or Retention?

There is a lot of talk amongst franchises and players about retention of individuals ahead of the next edition of the IPL as player contracts expire at the end of the 2010 season.

Team owners remain divided over the issue of player retention for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League. Retention would mean that franchises would be able to offer contract extensions to a particular number of players that have played for them in previous seasons, without the option of moving to another team. Sachin Tendulkar had come out in the open and said that he would like to see every team retain four domestic and foreign players respectively while the others should go back into the pool for open auction as it would give the teams something to build from.

Others like Geoff Marsh, coach of the Sahara Pune Warriors feels that the if teams are allowed to retain some players and all of them are not put up for auction, new teams will have to start at a disadvantage. Allowing franchises to retain players will place the new teams in great difficulty in fielding a competitive squad and can even impact upon the standard of the tournament. One of the franchises suggested providing the teams with two “cards” each. The cards would give the teams the first right of refusal for one Indian player and one foreign player from their team. So if the maximum bid for a player was set at $2 million, then his current franchise could use the card to bid $2 million and automatically retain him even if another franchise bids the maximum amount.

http://www.castrolcricket.com/ee/index.php/hotTopics/comments/ipl_auction_or_retention/

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Is Yuvraj Singh’s axing justified?

Even before the selection committee made public the Indian squad for the Asia Cup, there was speculation of Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra being dropped from the squad on disciplinary grounds. However, the latter’s inclusion makes one infer that the former’s omission could be because of his recent poor form with the bat and his lack of fitness.

Yuvraj missed out on the Champions’ trophy and the Bangladesh tour due to injuries only to recover in time for the IPL but since his comeback, he has had a horrid time with the bat, averaging just 21.25 with a high-score of 43 in the IPL 2010 and averaging even less, around 18.5 in the ICC World T20 with a high-score of just 37 runs. Interestingly, during the T20 World Cup, Singh (45 index points) had a better Castrol Index cumulative tally than all the Indian batsmen except Suresh Raina (58) & Rohit Sharma (67)

Of course, these are just recent stats and they are hardly reflective of his batting capabilities. Moreover, ODI is a totally different ball game and he was doing well enough in both Tests and ODIs, before he injured himself. So, his under-par performance with the bat in the recent T20 season does not guarantee another inferior display in the time ahead. Also, with the ODI World Cup not very far away, this would be the right time to start building momentum in the team and to give players as much practice of the 50-over format as possible.

But one might agree with the committee’s decision as this would allow him to get his focus back and give him time to work towards being more fit.

http://www.castrolcricket.com/ee/index.php/hotTopics/comments/is_yuvraj_singhs_axing_justified/