2008 Season Big Board (IPL Wrap-Up, p. III)

[Lefty J]

Firstly, let me introduce myself. You may have heard of me through some of D.S.'s posts, I'm LeftyJ, the resident stat man at Outside the Line. I'm also a huge fan of fantasy sports (I've dominated D.S. in our NBA fantasy leagues for two years running and the fucker still owes me money), and it's been obvious to me for some time that cricket is in DIRE need of a proper fantasy league. I can't believe it hasn't happened yet, but don't worry, I'm on the case.

As a kind of fake conclusion to this year's IPL fantasy season, I decided to do a final wrap up/Big Board. I've ranked the players in order of their total value in a ten category format (runs, strike rate, batting average, fours, sixes, wickets, bowling average, economy rate, catches and run outs). It wasn't easy to do, but I think you'll find it's quite accurate (feel free to post some comments on where you feel I went wrong), and in the end we found some surprising results.

RANK	PLAYER	TYPE		STOCK
1	SR Watson (RR)	Bat/Bwl/All	Contributed hugely in all 10 categories. The only player to do so. ‘Nuff said.
2	SE Marsh (PXI)	Bat	Top performer in runs (616) and average (68.44), second in fours (59) and sixes (26). An absolute beast.
3	ST Jayasuriya (MI)	Bat/All	Bigtime boundary hitter led the league in sixes (31), and broke even with his bowling.
4	Sohail Tanvir (RR)	Bwl/All	Most wickets (22), best average (12.09) and second lowest economy rate (6.46). Clearly the most effective bowler in the tournament.
5	YK Pathan (RR)	Bat/All	Came out of nowhere, and finished in the top three for strike rate and sixes, and managed 8 wickets with his handy offspin.
6	JA Morkel (CSK)	Bat/Bwl/All	A poor man's Shane Watson, contributed nicely in all categories except economy rate (8.31).
7	G Gambhir (DD)	Bat	Second leading run scorer and leading four hitter (68) just needs to embrace the six (he got a mere 8 of them) to become a complete fantasy batter.
8	SK Raina (CSK)	Bat	Leading catcher (10), with very solid batting numbers.
9	AC Gilchrist (DC)	Bat/WK	Wasn't as explosive as usual, but still a top-10 batter.
10	SK Warne (RR)	Bwl	Would love to see him bat higher up, but still scraped into the top ten with sublime bowling lines and six catches.
11	GC Smith (RR)	Bat	Thankfully didn't bowl, and his fours and average offset a poor strike rate.
12	RG Sharma (DC)	Bat	Faded late, but still contributed across the batting board, and bagged eight catches.
13	MF Maharoof (DD)	Bwl/All	Brilliant allround effort, would have been right up there if he had have been given more game time. Top-5 material for next year.
14	SC Ganguly (KKR)	Bat/All	Sourav kept his inner Kallis at bay and managed the league’s lowest economy rate, as well as a lot of runs and sixes.
15	MS Dhoni (CSK)	Bat/WK	Had a solid tournament with the bat, and got 6 catches.
16	DJ Bravo (MI)	Bwl/All	Multi-category player looked the part in limited time. Should break the top-10 next season.
17	SM Pollock (MI)	Bwl/All	Achieved a little in most categories, but excelled bigtime in economy rate (6.54).
18	PP Chawla (PXI)	Bwl	Struggled to keep the runs down, but was a genuine wicket-taker. Showed urgency with the bat, and held onto 6 catches.
19	IK Pathan (PXI)	Bwl/All	Reversed his previous form, and had a great tournament with the ball (15 wickets, econ rate 6.6), but not with the bat (strike rate 112, only 9 fours).
20	M Gony (CSK)	Bwl	Solid bowling is hard to come by in this format, and Gony bowled tight and and picked up wickets all tournament.

 

It turns out that the quality allrounder is the key to your fantasy team. Five of the top six players are allrounders. However, the most successful allrounders are the ones who could be considered specialists in both fields. It is always a risky pick drafting a bowling alrounder or (especially) a batting allrounder. Sehwag's omission from the top twenty is a perfect example of that. So the Morkel's and Watson's of the world should go very early in next years drafts. If Flintoff can ever get in a team, then watch out.

Five players from the top eleven played for the eventual winners, the Rajasthan Royals. The Bangalore Royal Challengers didn't get a single player in the top 20 (even Deccan Chargers managed two players), partly because they played so poorly, but partly because their players aren't fantasy-ready. And if this Big Board proves anything, it's that there is a correlation between fantasy performance and winning Twenty20 games.

One other thing to note is that batters (5 categories) are more useful than bowlers (3 categories). We wanted to even it up and include maidens (like we did for the World Cup 2007 fantasy system) , but there simply aren't enough of them in Twenty20 to make it a viable stat. Catches and run outs can prove the difference in the end, as SK Raina showed.

Here at Outside The Line, we plan on having a fully functional roto style fantasy league for next years IPL. We know we have some kinks to iron out in our system, but we assure you, it'll be much better than anything cricinfo, or anyone else has to offer. And I will personally provide the big boards, and fantasy relevant news and updates to help you draft, and win your leagues.

Comments

[Jrod]

From the google hits on my site I'd say alot of women have already started their own fantasy league, and Shane Watson is the only player they desire.

[D.S. Henry]

How can you tell it's women who desire him, JRod?