IPL 2018 Fantasy Guru: What your team should look like for MI vs SRH

Subs used – 1; Subs remaining 48

Chris Gayle out – Shikhar Dhawan in

(Uncapped) Mayank Agarwal out – Ishan Kishan in

Uncapped preference order: Krunal Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Siddarth Kaul, Mayank Markande

Captain – Shikhar Dhawan

Captaincy preference order: Shikhar Dhawan, Jasprit Bumrah, Evin Lewis

Differential – Manish Pandey

Guru’s team ahead of MI vs SRH: E Lewis, S Dhawan, S Yadav, I Kishan, R Pant, KL Rahul, S Watson, K Pandya, J Bumrah, M Markande, B Kumar

Sunrisers Hyderabad will be without Bhuvneshwar Kumar today, but I am not dropping him from my side yet, as he is confirmed to start against Kings XI Punjab at home. With injury clouds hanging over Shikhar Dhawan and Yusuf Pathan as well, even Mumbai Indians, who have found different ways to lose matches so far, should come out of this fixture with two points in the bag.

If Dhawan plays, he becomes an automatic fantasy pick, as Sunrisers play thrice in the next six games and going into this round of fixtures without their best batsman would be the silliest thing to do. Kane Williamson is in good form as well, and if he continues to open the innings, he can always be expected to give steady returns.

The challenge, however, is in finding out whether Williamson will open. There are a couple of tell-tale signs that you can look out for at the toss to ascertain his batting position:

If Dhawan doesn’t play, he is obviously going to open;

If Dhawan replaces Ricky Bhui and not Deepak Hooda or Yusuf Pathan, then that’s also an indicator of him opening.

I already have five players from Mumbai Indians, and with Ishan Kishan getting in as uncapped, that closes out the day for me. As far as Rohit Sharma is concerned, like I said in my previous Mumbai Indians piece, if you are getting him in, you will have to hold on to him for at least two matches to expect any sort of returns, as a result of him pushing himself down to No.4.

I could have 7-8 players going into the match, but I still won’t be using the multiplier option yet, as it meets only one of the four criterions (number of players required) that I have in place to use it. The other three are covering all the major scoring options involved in the game (Rohit Sharma missing out here), avoiding the possibility of a lopsided contest, which could seriously affect the fantasy potential of the players involved, and staying away from matches involving top bowling units.