Monday, April 11, 2011

Has the strategy of a completely new team gone wrong for the old franchises?

KOLKATA KNIGHT Riders, Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers – a common thing amongst all of them is that they went for a complete revamp of their teams for the fourth season of the IPL.

Even though the teams were given the option to retain 4 players these franchises felt the need to have a completely new playing XI. Barring their captain Virender Sehwag the Delhi Daredevils have a completely new team. KKR, Kings XI Punjab and Deccan Chargers are also starting afresh.

But has this strategy backfired? All four of them lost their opening games. KKR still managed to give the Chennai Super Kings some fight but the other games were completely one sided. Could this complete revamp strategy be a reason for that?

For starters, these teams did not retain certain key players and then lost them to the other franchises during the auction thereby weakening their teams. Not retaining Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, and Rohit Sharma may prove costly for them as the tournament goes on.

According to Navjot Sidhu or Sherry as he is fondly called by the IPL hosts, Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians have done the smart thing by retaining key players thereby keeping the nucleus of the team intact. The initial results have also been in their favour, with Chennai beating KKR and Mumbai bowling out the Delhi Daredevils for a modest total of 95.

As per experts, for any new side, players take some time to get used to each other. The captain also needs some time to understand each of his players, their strengths and weaknesses and build his strategies accordingly. Three years of playing together and then not even a week to adjust to the new situation does have an impact on the performance of the teams.

However, its still early days in the tournament. Let's hope that the players of these franchises adjust quickly to the new scenario and live up to the faith that their owners have shown in them.

Read More On >> IPL 2011, IPL Live Score

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