Time to fantasize

The IPL II comes to an exciting end today. It being a Sunday of underdogs in South Africa, with two retired war horses in Gilly and Jumbo leading their pack to the finals. No one would have expected them to pull this off given they were the wooden spoon holders last time around finishing 8^th and 7^th respectively.

One of the best things about this season’s IPL has been the Fantasy cricket, I have been playing throughout. It was really exciting to take a manager/captain’s role and pick the best 11 for your fantasy team.

So as a finishing touch, here is my hand-picked fantasy team with the best in this season so far.

[caption id="attachment_316" align="aligncenter" width="382" caption="Ram's 11 - My Fantasy team"][/caption]

Icon player [1]

It was a tough choice. Other contenders were Sachin and Dravid, but Yuvi has been good in parts with both bat and the ball, if not consistent. He has scored 346 runs and picked 6 wickets including double whammy of hat-tricks. His bowling and powerful hitting made him edge over Sachin. Dravid has been sort of in and out of the team, so he had an unsettled look. Sorry Viru, VVS and Saurav, better luck next time. But one small change, the icon player doesn't get to be my captain.

Foreign players [4]

Orange capped Haydos and his good old team mate Gilly were automatic choices. Mr. Priest, the walker gets to be my captain for his ability to lead from the front. Bowling slot was sweeped by Malinga given his consistent performance thru out the series. I couldn’t make a quick decision reg the 4^th slot. Should it be a bowler or a batsman? If a batsman then, ABD or Dilshan or Duminy. Else Nannes / Abdulla / Murali. I would love to have Abdulla in my team. This guy was amazing picking 14 wickets in 9 matches. He was unlucky to have Lee back in the side and he automatically fell out of favour. But inorder to maintain a balance, I have to go with a batsmen. And it’s the first centurion of this season ABD.

Indian under-22 [2]

Blore’s Kohli, Chennai’s Tyagi, Deccan’s Rohit n Suman, Delhi’s Sangwan, Punjab’s Sohal n Chawla, Kolkata’s Ishant, Mumbai’s Abishek, Rajasthan’s Kamran Khan n Jadeja have been really impressive and outstanding. I was really happy to see these kids perform well in the big stage, after all, IPL is all about identifying new talents like these. Now coming back to my pick, Rohit Sharma goes straight through. He has even been named the ‘Citi under-23 success of the tournament’. He rightfully deserves it. 2^nd slot was a tough fight between Ishant, Sangwan and Chawla. Sangwan gets picked for his wicket taking ability (He is 8^th in the top 10 wicket takers of this tourney) He bowls good left-arm medium-pace like his idol Wasim Akram.

Indian over-22 [4]

Purple cap holder RP Singh, the underdog and revelation of this season Ashish Nehra (I never expected him to be this successful) and namma Chennai’s very own super king Raina pick themselves up. The only remaining slot had the Pathan brothers from Baroda in a tussle. But, Yusuf lost it to his younger brother Irfan for his exceptional all-round abilities picking 17 wickets at an avg of 22.94 and scoring 196 runs @ a strike rate of 124.05.

All said and done, if there were no restrictions like Icon/Under-22/4 Foreigners etc., then the one below would have been my dream team.. Looks sexy na :)

[caption id="attachment_321" align="aligncenter" width="260" caption="My dream team"][/caption]