|||IPL 2017||| - Page 2

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

I'm in the US: any apps that would allow me to watch the live matches from here? I don't have any TV, just broadband internet. Note: I'm not talking about scores: already have the ESPNcricinfo for that

Where they finished

Seventh, with four wins and ten losses

The good

Lions were among the best teams in the Powerplay this season. The explosive potential of players like Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Smith and Aaron Finch was utilised effectively, in rotation. They hit 28 sixes in the Powerplay, the most by any team, and scored 50-plus in 10 out of 14 Powerplays.

His team struggled for the majority of the campaign, but Raina was consistent. At the end of their final game, he was the third highest run-getter of the season, and finished with 442 runs in 14 innings. He had a strike rate of 143.77 and made seven 30-plus scores.

Australia fast bowler Andrew Tye failed to take a wicket in only two of the six games he played - the second time was because of a dislocated shoulder against Mumbai Indians. That injury ended his season, but not before he took 12 wickets at an economy of 6.71. His peak was in his first match, when he took a hat-trick and a five-wicket haul, besides unveiling the the powers of his knuckle ball.

The bad

Lions' impressive stats in the Powerplay came at the cost of imbalance in the middle order. They had five specialist openers in the squad, and all of them were given a chance at the top - they used five opening combinations this season. This meant at least three players were always out of their favoured position in the batting order: Aaron Finch and Dwayne Smith struggled, averaging less than 25 for the season.

Lions used 16 regular bowlers over the season, indicating that they never found their best combination. Four bowlers played only one match, three played only two, and one played three - they managed only three wickets in total.

The ugly

With an unsettled middle order and James Faulkner's waning ability as a finisher, Lions desperately missed a specialist allrounder. They missed Dwayne Bravo, in particular, and the impact of his absence was exacerbated by a poor strategy at the player auction in February, and a poor replacement plan during the tournament.

Bravo's injury had looked serious the moment he picked it up at the end of December, a month and a half before the player auction. He joined the Lions squad, though, and the franchise clung on to the slim hope that he would regain match fitness before it was too late, while the other teams raced ahead in the league. In the end, Bravo pulled out of the season, and Lions roped in Irfan Pathan, who was unimpressive in the only game he played.

Lions' poor performance at the auction was further highlighted when their overseas players began to become unavailable because of injury or national duty. At one point they had only four overseas players available for selection, one of whom was UAE's Chirag Suri, whom they had bought despite him not having played a T20 game. They eventually played their last three games of the season with only three overseas players in the XI.

The missing ingredient

Lions' spinners were the worst in the league by a long way - they took nine wickets at an average of 90.55. Spinners for every other team apart from Delhi Daredevils took at least 25 wickets. Ravindra Jadeja had a poor tournament, taking only five wickets in 38 overs at an economy rate of 9.18.

Out of their control

Lions were hampered by injuries to key players. Bravo missed the entire season, Faulkner came in with an injury and was only available for eight games, and Ravindra Jadeja also became available for selection only after their first two games. They then lost Tye and McCullum to injuries in the second half of the season.

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

Based on the performances so far, here are the new players who've surfaced this IPL and should be considered for India. Could even make up a playing XI?

Rahul Tripathi

Ishan Kishan

+Rishab Pant

Sanju Samsun

Nitish Rana

Krunal Pandya

Hardik Pandya

Jaspreet Bumrah

Jaydev Unadkat

Siddarth Kaul

Basil Thampi

Ankit Soni

Where they finished

Sixth for the second season in a row, with six wins and eight losses.

The good

Things looked dandy for Delhi Daredevils when Pat Cummins, Chris Morris, Kagiso Rabada, Zaheer Khan and Mohammed Shami ran in and hit the pitch hard with the new ball. The Daredevils seamers were the most effective in the Powerplay, taking 18 wickets at an average of 29 - the best among all teams in the league stage.

Rishabh Pant, who hammered 49 sixes in 12 innings in the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy, went on a six-hitting spree in the IPL as well. He hit 24 sixes in 14 innings, and only Glenn Maxwell had struck more. Nine out of Pant's 24 sixes came in a successful chase of 209 against Gujarat Lions.

The bad

Pant features here as well, which encapsulates Daredevils' hit-or-miss campaign. He made three ducks - the joint most by a player this season - and three single-digit scores; five such scores contributed to defeats.

Daredevils were particularly poor with the bat between overs six and 15. They played out 286 dots in the middle overs - the most by any team - while also losing 39 wickets, again the joint most by any team.

Bizarre tactics, too, cost Daredevils. For starters, they picked only one frontline batsman in Ankit Bawne in the auction in February. Injuries and the lack of back-up batsmen meant Daredevils had to persist with out-of-form batsmen or make do with allrounders .

Their best striker, Morris, could have added more depth to the batting had Daredevils used him better. He had the second-best strike rate (168.09) among Daredevils' players, just behind Pant (170.45), but faced only 94 balls. Six other batsman in the Daredevils line-up faced more balls than Morris. There was, perhaps, a case for the management to bump Morris up the order, but he batted in the top five only once in eight innings.

Given that Zaheer Khan had not played a single competitive match between the last IPL and this one, his fitness was always going to be a major worry. Zaheer missed three matches because of injury, and with Angelo Mathews also just returning from injury and searching for form, Daredevils did not have an experienced hand to show them the way. Instead, Karun Nair, who made only one fifty-plus score across formats since his triple-hundred in the Chennai Test against England last year, stood-in as captain.

The ugly

Daredevils were the only side to be bowled out under 70 on two occasions this year. Right after the sensational chase against Gujarat Lions, they careened to 66 all out against Mumbai Indians - their lowest total in the IPL.

The missing ingredient

Experience. Daredevils' top four, for all their talent, was the least experienced in the league. This, perhaps, explained why they could not manipulate the middle overs and failed to close out tight games.

Out of their control

Before the start of the season, Zaheer said Daredevils were sitting pretty despite the unavailability of Quinton de Kock (injured) and JP Duminy (personal reasons) for the entire season. But, the absence of the South African pair hit them hard as the league progressed. Zaheer and Corey Anderson also suffered injuries towards the end of the league stage, which forced the management to shake things up further.