IPL 2014: Fantasy Guru employs 'Schedule Mantra'

I am aware of the fact that I have been quite lavish in the last four matches with the way I have used up the ‘transfer count’, which has come down from 75 to 66 in the process.

It was done with due consideration and after noticing that the ‘schedule mantra’ can be applied in the next phase, which means activating the ‘hold back mode’. Every move made in the last four matches had a great chance of giving us a lot of impact points. Although only Glenn Maxwell delivered, the others positioned themselves in such a way that they could have provided a lot of points.

The game works in such a way that you have no control over whether the player actually delivers; you can only give yourself the best chance and hope the team strategies and players won’t let you down.

Get ready for the Shane Watson show

Get rid of the Mumbai Indians players:

Mumbai Indians next play only after a span of 6 matches. So, no matter how good a Mumbai Indian you have in your team, he should be your first guy to be thrown out while making substitutions. I wasn’t quite aware of this while asking you to substitute Sanju Samson for Manish Pandey in the last match; instead, it should have been Aditya Tare who should have made the way. Moreover, Samson’s Rajasthan Royals play the very next match.

I realised this while making the transfers and altered it accordingly at the last minute. As I fell 50,000 short to complete the transfer, I swapped Ajinkya Rahane for Rohit Sharma, too.

While I regret for having misled you in this regard, I still stand by my decision to pick Tare ahead of Yuzvendra Chahal. There was no logic in picking Chahal against some of the best players of spin in the world, but Mumbai Indians just disgracefully capitulated, something that I can’t take responsibility for.

Schedule Mantra – value per transfer:

It is a ploy of getting more points from a player before transferring him out. For example, consider that among Amit Mishra, who plays two matches in a round, and Sunil Narine, who plays 1 match in a round, you can pick only one and whoever you pick needs to be transferred out after a certain point of time to accommodate a new player.

Although Mishra may not give as many points as Narine in a single match, when you take into consideration that he plays two matches before getting transferred out, he gains more value than he actually deserves. It would be shrewd to pick Mishra who can give 175 (100+75) points in two matches combined ahead of Sunil Narine who could come up with 140 points in a single match. The possibility of a fabulous player, no matter how good he is, as we witnessed in the case of Narine against Daredevils, failing to deliver on a day is high, as well. To sum it up, it is taking a temporary blow for the greater benefit of delivering the knockout punch.

The tricky part is that you need to need to find how many matches constitute a round in a particular tournament. The length of a round varies from tournament to tournament.

What constitutes a round in IPL 7?

It is how quickly a team plays its second match. The best use of a schedule mantra in IPL 7 is when a team plays twice in a span of 3 matches. The need for it has finally come now.

Those who think they have done it already in this IPL have messed it up big time by losing out on chances of making use of another valuable player. A team has so far not played twice in a span of 3 matches; they have done so on 4 and 5 match spans, though. Reserving a player for that long when the ideal round limit is only 3 is just being inconsiderate. While a 4-match round may at least be acceptable on a select few occasions, a 5-match round is something not even worth considering about.

One also needs to be aware of the fact that just because a team plays back-to-back matches doesn’t mean you will have to pick more players from the team.

Rajasthan Royals vs. Kings 11 Punjab

Guru’s team ahead of the RR vs. KXIP fixture

Transfers done – 3; transfers remaining – 63

Rohit Sharma out – Ajinkya Rahane inLasith Malinga out – Shane Watson inSunil Narine out – Brendon McCullum in (done now for budget and combination purpose)Manish Pandey out – Pravin Tambe in

Captain – Shane Watson or Glenn Maxwell

Shane Watson to make it big:

While I did not have Shane Watson throughout the World Cup T20 and for the first IPL match as he would struggle against spinners on supportive decks, the time has come for him to make a grand entry into my team. In contrast to what people make of his poor run of scores of late, it is not that he is out of form; instead, he is just being outplayed. I believe my theory will be justified in the next match when he takes on Kings 11, who don’t have quality spinners in their side.

Ajinkya Rahane:

Yet another player who didn’t find a spot in Guru’s team last time around. He was lucky to survive Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Dale Steyn against Sunrisers to make a reasonable score: dropped catches, missed edges and plenty of luck played a part in his knock.

Rahane, despite being cheap, is set to face two of the weakest bowling attacks in the league in KXIP and CSK. A specialist in accumulating runs against not-so-threatening T20 attacks, Rahane also makes his way into the side.

None of the other capped Rajasthan Royals players make the cut; I stick to my explanations in the last article as to why I don’t think any other Royals player deserves a spot.

Sanju Samson and Dhawal Kulkarni:

Both of them made into my side in the previous Royals fixture due to different reasons: one as uncapped and the other to keep up with the budget.

Samson looked like a fish out of water against Sunrisers; it didn’t quite surprise me given the quality of bowling he faced. Apart from Johnson, the KXIP bowlers don’t pose any threat to the Kerala wicket-keeper batsman and hence he stays where he is.

Kulkarni, who is already in the side as well, can be expected to get a couple of wickets, with Virender Sehwag being the most likely first victim.

Kings 11 Punjab:

Bailey-O-Bailey:

I must admit that while I expected George Bailey to make a mess of the batting order by either demoting Glenn Maxwell or David Miller to number 6, I never foresaw him lowering himself to that spot. Had he come in ahead of Miller, he would have had 50 runs to his name and plenty of points to my team by belting that club-level CSK bowling attack.

Apart from Glenn Maxwell, who is already in my team, I have decided to not take in any of the Kings 11 players, as I am not quite sure who among Miller and Bailey will come in at number 5. My team has already been affected by Bailey’s tactics, and it is not ready for anymore. While Akshar Patel was employed as a floater in the match against CSK, it could very well be Wriddhiman Saha this time to delay both Miller and Bailey. And Saha doesn’t get out easily.

Also, if Kings 11 bat first, Cheteshwar Pujara may just bat on and on and reduce the number of deliveries others can face. It doesn’t make a case for bringing in Pujara into the team, though.

Virender Sehwag looked pleasing to watch during his short stay at the crease, but Royals have a potent attack to keep him quiet.

Sharjah looked good for batting, and hence Johnson, being not a good death bowler, doesn’t make the team, either.

Uncapped player: Pravin Tambe will slot in as an uncapped player for this match.

Chennai Super Kings vs. Delhi Daredevils:

Transfers done – 2; transfers remaining – 62

Virat Kohli out – Suresh Raina inPravin Tambe out – Mayank Agarwal in

Captain – Suresh Raina

The fact that Chennai Super Kings play 2 matches in a 3-match round activates the schedule mantra.

Suresh Raina walks in:

Suresh Raina would be the first name to find a spot for obvious reasons.

Just because both Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith look good to rake in points, you can’t have both in the team. Both of them have had their troubles in scoring against the slower bowlers, which makes the encounter against Royals a tough nut to crack. Another point to be noted is that the evening matches have provided considerable assistance to the bowlers in all the fixtures played so far.

The value of points per transfer in this case is very high, though. Therefore, I choose to go in with McCullum, who is more a 360 degree player than Smith, who has his limitations.

There is just too much batting strength with the Super Kings; therefore, MS Dhoni may not be needed at all. Faf du Plessis at 4 isn’t quite as good as he can be as an opener, as the position requires clearing the ropes more than timing the shots, which is the South African T20 captain’s forte.

One of Ben Hilfenhaus and Samuel Badree has a great chance to play ahead of the injured Dwayne Bravo. If Badree plays, he will be up against Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson in his next fixture, both of whom will nullify his threat. So, the schedule mantra doesn’t hold good in the leg-spinner’s case. However, if Hilfenhaus plays, he is worth a gamble given he will be up against susceptible players of swing bowling in both the fixtures.

Delhi Daredevils:

While Dinesh Karthik played a very good knock against Kolkata Knight Riders, it is advisable to wait and gauge if he is actually back to form or fooling around. Morever, he has his tendency to run himself out, which doesn’t inspire confidence, as well.

I had JP Duminy out of the last match despite it being a great chance to use schedule mantra and have him in, going by the school of thinking that he is vulnerable against Sunil Narine and also had chances of getting demoted in favour of Ross Taylor. Both those fears were realised, with him not finding it easy to score against Narine and getting demoted, but he somehow managed to escape both the traps and play a match-winning knock.

Since it doesn’t make sense to have him now with DD not playing their second match any sooner, he continues to remain out of the team. The same logic I used for keeping Jacques Kallis out against Daredevils, one that has plenty of risk but a good chance of coming off at the same time. The possible promotions of Manoj Tiwary and Ross Taylor/Kevin Pietersen stand in the way, as well.

If Hilfenhaus doesn’t play, Mayank Agarwal makes the cut as the uncapped player for this match. If CSK does play Hilfenhaus, Ishwar Pandey, provided he makes it to the playing 11, could be the best choice. If none of these works out, Shahbaz Nadeem and Pawan Negi look good for 40 points each.

While I will be back for the next couple of matches – just to make sure I am on track with respect to the transfer count – I would like to point out that the last two matches will require 2 changes at the maximum.

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Edited by Staff Editor