Outside The Line

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.

Waiting For Cricket's Velvet Revolution

[NOTE: In his book "Letters to a Young Contrarian", Christopher Hitchens recounts a strategy used by dissidents in Eastern Europe, like Vaclav Havel, to get through life behind the Iron Curtain. It was dubbed the 'As If' strategy. Havel “realised that ‘resistance’ in its original insurgent and militant sense was impossible in the Central Europe of the day. He therefore proposed living ‘as if’ he were a citizen of a free society, ‘as if’ lying and cowardice were not mandatory patriotic duties, ‘as if’ his government had actually signed the various treaties and agreements that enshrine universal human rights.”

Here at Outside the Line, we embrace that sentiment, and we wish to somehow emulate it. Luckily, we live in a free society, with no StB goons in the adjacent house waiting to break our bones, so our hypothetical ‘as if’ strategy shall be reserved for more trivial matters. Namely, ranking IPL players.

One of the criminally overlooked aspects about the IPL so far has been its fantasy potential. Now that we have an actual functional league, with a uniform number of games, and a colelction of international talent in one place, there is no excuse not to have a proper fantasy infrastructure. Entire armies of sports geeks and office procrastinators have been denied already, and it's just not right! We can’t keep that going any longer.

And, by the way, we don’t mean the usual worthless fantasy games on offer at cricinfo and elsewhere on the net, where everyone gets to pick from the entire pool of players, and then points are given out virtually arbitrarily. We mean proper rotisserie-style fantasy leagues, with drafts, trading, free agents, and players competing only against others chosen to be in their league.

As far as we're aware, no such thing exists out there for cricket. Therefore, until it does (which if we get our shit together, should be by the start of next year's IPL), we will just live 'as if' fantasy cricket exists. So here it is, the inaugural Outside the Line Big Board, assessing the fantasy stock of the leading IPL players. We chose a typical set of roto rules and some predictable categories, just to give everyone an idea of what we're talking about.

I’d also like to use the opportunity to introduce my good friend Joey – Lefty J to the cricket world – who compiled this Big Board and shall be contributing regularly to Outside the Line, mainly with some nifty statistical alchemy and other crazy attempts at finding objective gold. Lefty J was my mentor in all things cricket-related, so any odd prejudices I still hold are probably attributable to him in some way. The man is probably the shrewdest and most annoyingly rational being I’ve ever know, and he doesn’t suffer fools – or time-wasters – gladly. Cross him at your peril. But give him some love. 

-- D.S. Henry]

RULES:

• 6-8 teams per league.

• Each team drafts 11 players before the season.

• Teams must consist of 4 batters, 3 allrounders, 1 keeper and 3 bowlers.

• 10 Categories (runs, batting average, batting strike rate, 4s, 6s, wickets, bowling average, economy rate, catches and runouts/stumpings).

• Total stats are accumulated for every category, and teams in each league are ranked based on their average performance for each of them.

BIG BOARD

                                                                                                                                                                       

Rank	Name	Type	Stock
1	S.   Watson (RR)	Bat/Bwl/All	Ugh. Has overachieved in all ten categories.   The Shawn Marion of the IPL, and should still be good for more. (Trust us, we   wouldn’t be giving this to him if we had any doubts about it.)
2	A.   Gilchrist (KKR)	Bat/Kpr	Batting legend is still in prime form, is the   second leading run getter (308) and the leading six hitter (16)
3	S.   Marsh (PXI)	Bat	Another overachieving Aussie has IPL's highest   batting average (98) and 295 runs in only 5 matches. So far, has got this   league by the balls.
4	V.   Sehwag (DDD)	Bat	Highest strike rate of 200+ run getters (177),   crushing boundaries as he rides on his enemies. His bowling has been weak so   far, though, but look for that to change.
5	D.   Hussey (KKR)	Bat	Fills up the batting stat sheet. A very safe   draft, and a safe pair of Aussie farm hands to boot.
6	G.   McGrath (DDD)	Bwl	Best economy rate in the league (5.7) and has   only faced two balls with the bat so far – and he got out to the second one.
7	I.   Pathan (PXI)	Bwl/All	Statistically the best bowler of the   tournament so far, gets you some handy runs and sixes as well.
8	Y.   Singh (PXI)	Bat	Has equal highest catch per innings ratio   (.777), but poor bowling and big names batting above him take from his   potential top-5 batting stats.
9	M.S.   Dhoni (CSK)	Bat/Kpr	Superb batting stats from Dhoni. Is revelling   now as the key batsman for Chennai.
10	R.   Sharma (DC)	Bat	Third leading run getter looks really   comfortable out there. Only 21 years old, an Indian superstar in the making.
11	S.   Afridi (DC)	Bat/Bwl/All	Woeful batting and 2 DNPs from this year’s   biggest draft bust. Only needs a foot in the door though...
12	S.   Jayasuriya (MI)	Bat/All	Until big hundred, hadn't struck any sort of form in the tournament, but should be good to go from now on. Tight bowling a big bonus.
13	S.   Tanvir (RR)	Bwl	A tough bowler to pick up quickly has had   major success so far - bowling average (15.9) and econ rate (6.6). After 3   early DNPs, should be a lock for the rest of the tourney.
14	K.   Sangakkara (PXI)	Bat/Kpr	Class act has surprised all with his strike   rate (166), but an untimely side strain has stalled his momentum.
15	S.   Warne (RR)	Bwl/All	5 catches and nice bowling stats -- although   his econ rate is a little high (8.27)
16	G.   Gambhir (DD)	Bat	Enjoying life at the top with Sehwag. Leading  run scorer (336) and 4 hitter (43)
17	S.   Raina (CSK)	Bat	Fielding allrounder with the equal highest   catch/innings ratio, and getting to spending some solid time out in the   middle since Hussey and Hayden left.
18	S.   Pollock (MI)	Bwl/Alr	Does everything slightly better than the   average. A nice filler for your team.
19	S.   Ganguly (KKR)	Bat/All	A risky draft pick can 'Kallis it up' with the   best of them, but opening status helps, along with effective bowling (econ   rate 5.78). Is a lock for games and time in the middle.
20	S.   Tendulkar (MI)	Bat	Lengthy wait on sidelines finally comes to an   end.

ON THE BUBBLE

                                                           

Player	Role
M.   Asif (DDD)	Bwl
I.   Sharma (KKR)	Bwl
U. Gul (KKR)	Bwl
P.   Chawla (PXI)	Bwl/All
M.   Boucher (BRC)	Bat/Kpr
S.   Styris (KKR)	Bat/Bwl/All
S.   Sreesanth (PXI)	Bwl
Y.   Pathan (RR)	Bat/All
Z.   Khan (BRC)	Bwl
A.B.   Dinda (KKR)	Bwl
D.   Kulkarni (MI)	Bwl/All
M.   Muralitharan (CSK)	Bwl
A.B.   DeVilliers (DDD)	Bat/Kpr
S.   Akthar (KKR)	Bwl

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