IPL Retentions - Part 3

Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians

This third part of my IPL retention series of articles looks at the remaining four existing teams in the tournament who I didn’t cover in yesterday’s part two. Just a recap, if you would like to view the other articles in the series they are linked below.

Part 1 - An overview of the retention marketplace

Part 2 - Punjab Kings, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Rajasthan Royals & Royal Challengers Bangalore

**Many thanks to supporters who have bought me a coffee. It is much appreciated!**

Apologies for starting on this note but here we are - despite making my thoughts on this area abundantly clear, I am still getting tweets going on about commercial value of players. To be blunt, I’m now completely bored of these tweets and I won’t reply to any more on this subject. Plus, it’s such a weird point of view for fans to sympathise with teams who are more worried about commercial value than actually winning. This leads me neatly onto my house rules and opening thoughts below.

** As I said in part one, commercial value is an absolute irrelevance. I explained why it has zero impact on a team’s chances of success in part one. I’m not going to explain that again in the remainder of this article series.

** It’s probably fair to say that player power has never been higher in the IPL. Retentions may not have happened because the player thinks he can get more money at auction, or because they want to play for a different team. Criticism of teams failing to retain specific players should be taken with this caveat.

** There is a maximum of 450.5 Crore to be spent at auction from the eight existing teams. It is easy to overestimate how many players will cost in excess of 10 Crore, when in fact, teams paying big money for a player actually will dramatically reduce their budget for the subsequent stages of the auction.

** It is very possible for a player to be very good and offer poor value for money. I cannot emphasise this enough, and I want to clarify here that any criticism of a team’s decision isn’t necessarily any criticism of a individual player, but simply because I believe that they have overpaid for that particular player - often because there is a very high chance that the player could have been purchased for much cheaper at auction.

** Finally, this leads on to rule number one for retentions - ‘Only retain a player if you perceive that there is a high chance that the player in question will cost significantly more in the open market at auction’. It’s obvious but teams still ignore it.

All good? Let’s move on to the discussion of the individual teams. Prices listed are in Crore, with ballpark currency conversions being 1 Crore = £100,000 and 1 Lakh = £1,000. Teams have a maximum of 90 Crore (£9m) to construct their rosters.

Chennai Super Kings:-

Retained Ravindra Jadeja (16), MS Dhoni (12), Moeen Ali (8), Ruturaj Gaikwad (6). Remaining = 48 Crore.

No real surprises here in terms of what was anticipated that CSK would do in advance. Jadeja is pretty pricey but is literally the dictionary definition of a three-dimensional cricketer, having hugely improved his hitting, being a very useful left-arm spinner and arguably the best fielder in the entire tournament.

Moeen Ali, as a big-hitting spin all-rounder, offers such a valuable skillset that his retention at 8 Crore seems a no-brainer as well. These type of players pretty much don’t exist at auction, and that’s without even considering his ability against leg spin and slow left-arm spinners. He ranks seventh out of 46 in terms of six-hitting percentage against these bowlers combined in the IPL across the last three seasons (minimum 100 balls faced) - here’s the top seven:-

Top of this list of six-hitters against these two spin types is Nicholas Pooran who was released by Punjab Kings. I mentioned Pooran in part two of this series as a specialist match-up breaker and a shield batter to pair with a right-handed batter weak against the ball turning away from him and this accurately illustrates why. It will be fascinating to see how he gets on at auction, considering he’s had a pretty tough year in T20 cricket often playing in roles which don’t suit him.

Adding Ruturaj Gaikwad at 6 Crore as well seems another no-brainer. He edged CSK team-mate Faf du Plessis by two runs to the orange cap, striking at 136, and he seems on a really nice upward curve. CSK have done really well to get two scarce resources sorted in terms of big-hitting all rounders who also bowl spin, and a young domestic batter who looks like he could achieve anything.

Then we come to MS Dhoni. There were reports that Dhoni himself wanted a lower salary but CSK were keener to give him higher to free up more money for subsequent years if Dhoni retires in the next year, and that approach from the franchise would make a lot of logical sense. Some form of compromise appears to have been achieved.

We talked in previous parts of this series about how Virat Kohli is, in my view, overpriced based on performances on the pitch. The same, of course, applies to the current version of Dhoni at 12 Crore, but there’s one key difference between the duo. Dhoni is an absolute genius captain and it’s difficult to argue he’s not the best in the world at that job. Valuing captains is a tricky process but he’s shown enough evidence for me not to question this particularly.

CSK have been quoted as saying that they are going to try and bring back a lot of former players at auction, which seems to be a mistake on two counts. One, a lot of their players are at the veteran stages of their careers, and whether they will continually be able to produce a high level in the future is extremely debatable. Secondly, why on earth would you tell your rivals anything about your auction strategy in advance - that makes zero sense.

Overall, though, pretty predictable from CSK and they have built a solid base with their retentions, albeit with a lower budget than most to take into auction.

Delhi Capitals:-

Retained Rishabh Pant (16), Axar Patel (9 - with 3 further deducted from budget), Prithvi Shaw (7.5 - with 0.5 further deducted from budget), Anrich Nortje (6.5) Remaining = 47.5 Crore.

As with CSK, Delhi have been quoted as saying they want to bring back as many non-retained players as possible, which is a bizarre thing to say ahead of an auction where game theory should rule (it doesn’t, but that’s a debate for another day). Basically you’re just giving rival teams free rein to bid up and inflate the price for players you’re emotionally attached to, which can never have a positive impact on your roster composition.

Let’s start from the top, and captain Rishabh Pant at 16 Crore. I’m a big fan of Pant at his peak but I think the current version of him is overpriced at this level - and I’ll explain why.

The short answer is that I think he’s been told (either by Delhi, India or both) to change the way he plays. By this I mean that his natural exuberance, and attacking instincts appear to have been curbed, which seems to happen quite a bit to players in a league which in my opinion is sometimes rather backward in terms of strategy seemingly focused on wicket preservation and then thinking about attacking in the last 3-4 overs. I’d prefer to see him play the fearless brand of cricket which he originally made his name with. Two different charts below show Pant’s changing dynamic:-

When you think of Pant, you probably think of a swashbuckling innings where he takes the attack to the bowler, but actually his dynamic over the last three years in the IPL - illustrated above compared to domestic players facing 400+ balls in this time period - is more of a balanced player with a slight emphasis on responsibility. His boundary percentage at below 17% is unspectacular, and he actually exhibits a bit of a stability dynamic at around 25 balls per dismissal. I’d prefer to see him trade off some of this stability with extra intent (which we know he’s capable of) and edge a bit towards the bottom-right of this chart - I think that would make him far more dangerous.

Now we look at his boundary-hitting from 2016 (his first IPL season) to 2021:-

In 2020 and 2021, Pant is showing Kohli-type level of boundary-hitting - not enough. The Pant I’d pay 16 Crore for is the 2017-2019 Pant who had high boundary percentages in conjunction with absurdly good six-hitting numbers, not the Pant from 2020 and 2021.

Further factor in that there’s not much evidence to suggest that he’s an above-average captain at this level and I’m uninspired by this decision from Delhi at the price. If Pant can get back to those 2017-2019 levels, I’d pay pretty much anything to have him in my team but something seems to have happened with his game to suggest that this is far from a given.

Following Pant in the price list for Delhi is Axar Patel who I’m unconvinced represents good value either. His batting has been a struggle in recent years, facing 11.52 balls per dismissal from 2018 onwards, striking at 119.10 and hitting boundaries just 12.85% of the time. Based on this, he offers less with the bat than even a lower-order hitter (who at least would show huge intent and not chew up balls). He’s definitely a competent, economical left arm spinner but his balls per wicket strike rate isn’t great and not representative of a 9 Crore (and effective 12 Crore) bowler - and I can’t help but think that Delhi have overpaid here. Jadeja for 4 Crore effective more looks better value in my view.

The two lower-value retentions for Delhi look better. Prithvi Shaw has the second-highest boundary percentage for domestic players facing 400+ balls across the last three seasons of the IPL, and having just turned 22 years of age, should have continued further upside. He offers a rare skillset as an ultra-attacking domestic batter and looks like great value to me.

I’m not hugely sold on retaining many non-elite overseas players but Anrich Nortje looks a better pick for Delhi, based on numbers, than Kagiso Rabada. Nortje has really impressed in the IPL in recent years and there’s a decent chance he’d cost more at auction so it’s tough to be too negative on that particular retention.

In summary, a mixed bag. Shaw is a bargain, Nortje is understandable but Pant and Axar look overpriced to me. Is this a case of emotion getting in the way of logic for Delhi? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Kolkata Knight Riders:-

Retained Andre Russell (12 - with 4 further deducted from budget ), Venkatesh Iyer (8), Varun Chakravarthy (8 - with 4 further deducted from budget), Sunil Narine (6). Remaining = 48 Crore.

I’m not going to dwell too much on KKR. They have had 8 Crore deducted from their budget but are paying their players less - presumably to give themselves more flexibility in case they want to release them in the future - which makes sense for Andre Russell at least given his age and recent injury issues.

Peak Russell is worth every penny and more besides, and as an all-rounder who has the highest boundary percentage by far of any batter facing 300+ balls across the last three seasons of the IPL, it’s tough to argue against him. His bowling, though, has been pretty expensive in recent IPLs and also CPLs, and I don’t really view him as a regular four-over bowler any more at this level, in all honesty.

It’s easy to see why they’ve gone for Venkatesh Iyer, even though he’s pretty unproven. A domestic all-rounder who is attacking with the bat is basically impossible to find at auction so they’ve moved swiftly to cover that skillset, and with Iyer, Russell and Narine all picked up in advance they’ve certainly got those all-rounders covered, giving them some nice batting and bowling depth on paper already.

Varun Chakravarthy for effective 12 Crore, despite his talents, does look a little overpriced, but the benefit of having a strong local leg spinner means that they don’t have to use an overseas slot on a leg spinner, which is pretty useful and allows them flexibility to structure up in various ways - something which cannot be undervalued in terms of roster composition and team building.

There’s not really that much more to say. Russell and Chakravarthy look a little overpriced based on output but Russell would probably cost similar or more at auction. It all seems pretty logical at least and they could certainly have made some worse retentions (e.g. Morgan, Gill).

Mumbai Indians:-

Retained Rohit Sharma (16), Jasprit Bumrah (12), Suryakumar Yadav (8), Kieron Pollard (6). Remaining = 48 Crore.

I’ve mentioned a few times on The Cricket Podcast that this is a key auction cycle for MI, and one where they shouldn’t let their heart rule their head. Unfortunately for them, in my view they have because even though he’s their leader and one of their most successful players of all-time, Rohit Sharma looks like the heart winning over the head.

With a boundary percentage below 18% across the last three seasons, plus around 22 balls per dismissal, Sharma’s numbers based on these key metrics could be described as ‘good but not great’, and the chart below illustrates as much - comparing him to all domestic batters facing 400+ balls:-

Add into the mix that he turns 35 in April next year, and is showing a bit of a downturn in boundary-hitting (shown below), and it looks like mediocre value for Mumbai Indians here.

Furthermore, while Sharma’s non-boundary strike rate was better this year, it was around the low 50s in the 2019 and 2020 seasons - not a great deal better than the likes of Chris Gayle, whose lack of intent when not scoring boundaries is legendary. To put that into context, peak Sharma in 2015 had a non-boundary strike rate of just over 70 - very strong for an opener - to go with strong boundary-hitting and six-hitting numbers. It’s difficult to make a data-driven case for him being close to that level at this stage of his career.

On a side note, one of the keys for success for many T20 franchises (be they in the IPL or elsewhere) is to work out when to dispense with an ageing player and let someone else take the expensive financial hit when they decline. It seems that teams are still reticent to take those decisions.

Moving through Mumbai’s other retentions, Bumrah is unbelievable value for 12 Crore and in my view should be the best paid player at the franchise on merit. He’d go for minimum 16 Crore at auction and possibly even in excess of 20. We don’t need to go into Bumrah’s data because his performances and consistency over a long period of time speak for themselves.

Suryakumar Yadav at 8 Crore looks decent too - he’s third on the boundary percentage charts for domestic batters facing 400+ balls across the last three seasons and is the only domestic batter who has hit over 20% boundaries and faced over 20 balls per dismissal. This is the magic sweet spot I referred to for top-level batters in T20 cricket in part two of this series.

Finally, Kieron Pollard at 6 Crore. Compared to the last two years before, his 2021 season wasn’t his best in terms of output but he’s also done very well in the CPL in recent seasons too, so I don’t see anything to suggest he’s in much of a decline with the bat even at 34 years of age. Based on this, and the market price, the retention seems absolutely reasonable.

This means that the Pandya brothers are not retained. With regards to Hardik, this must be due to a lack of faith in him being a frontline bowling option any time soon, while Ishan Kishan will also have had his supporters hoping for him to continue his career with the franchise as well. I guess this is the difficulty successful teams face and picking four players from a squad packed with quality is probably a nice problem to have.

With almost half their budget gone on retentions, it might be pretty difficult for Mumbai to get their old core back. Certainly if they bid for the likes of Hardik Pandya and Ishan Kishan, teams should be trying to inflate their prices and make MI overpay for their emotional ties to their former players. As one of the more successful teams in recent years plus a team I generally perceive to make better decisions than most of their rivals, the MI strategy at auction will be fascinating.

**Many thanks to supporters who have bought me a coffee. It is much appreciated!**