IPL 2016: Fantasy Championship guide SRH v MI

A very important thing was reinstated yesterday, chasing is the way to go about T20 games, gone are the days when runs on the board were considered a big psychological advantage, we saw it in the World T20 knockout games and we have been seeing it in the IPL 2016 as well.

This new breed of cricketers do not fear a daunting total, in fact, they relish the fact that they have a set target in front of them and that they can now pace their innings in a better way.

Let’s get to business then!

Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Mumbai Indians

Transfer out: Quinton de Kock

Transfer in: Martin Guptill/ Mustafizur Rahman

So we have two teams that have good looking batting lineups but still find ways to mess things up. Nevertheless, you need to cover all your bases and hence, I already have David Warner, Rohit Sharma, Jos Buttler, Harbhajan Singh and Jasprit Bumrah in my side for this game.

Eoin Morgan had a wonderful game last time round but is he really worthy of that transfer? He has an IPL average of 23.22 and is susceptible against spin. He would be against Harbhajan Singh and that gives me enough reason to leave him out.

So, the two players who are really worth considering here are Mustafizur Rahman and Martin Guptill (i.e. if he plays).

But the problem with bringing in either of them is that then you wouldn’t be able to transfer any of them out before they play their next game (as Mumbai play a game day after and Hyderabad play one 2 days later). And if you do go ahead and bring them in and then decide to not transfer them out before the next game, you wouldn’t be able to get Russell into your team for the game on Tuesday (which clearly isn’t a great idea).

The Martin Guptill conundrum could well be solved by the Mumbai Indians team management itself as they just seem reluctant to do away with the misfiring Pollard.

Mustafizur has given brilliant performances in both the opening games and has been the only positive for Sunrisers Hyderabad so far. His off cutters, subtle changes in pace and rip-roaring Yorkers have bamboozled one and all. But as we saw during the KKR game, when Sunrisers bowl second there is always this concern of them not having enough runs on the board for the bowlers to play with, in which situation Mustafizur doesn’t pose the same threat. He thrives on batsmen going after him and getting deceived by his off-cutters but if the total posted by Sunrisers is not enough, the opposition batsmen would just play him out and thus, he wouldn’t make much of an impact.

So, if Sunrisers bat first, I would in all probability leave Mustafizur out.

Also, if Guptill does play, he seems to be the one with the higher ‘impact rating’ and thus, I would advise you to go with him. And as for the case of how you’ll get Russell in for the next game you could always transfer David Warner out and then use Guptill for two quick games.

So, you go with Guptill, if he plays, no matter what happens at the toss. But if he doesn’t play and Sunrisers bowl first, you go for Mustafizur, else make no transfer for this game.

For the uncapped player, I go with Krunal Pandya. The lesser-known Pandya brother had a terrific IPL debut and could use the big boundaries to his advantage while bowling his slow left-arm deliveries.

Batting captain: David Warner

Bowling captain: Jasprit Bumrah/ Mustafizur Rahman

If I bring in Mustafizur, I’ll make him my bowling captain, else I go with Bumrah.

The official fantasy website says that it will start the scoring from Monday’s game. You will be having 80 transfers for the remaining games. In this article I’ll give you my starting 11 which would comprise mainly of Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians players. Mumbai play twice in the span of 3 games and thus it makes sense to stack up your team with their players.

Starting XI- Rohit Sharma, Martin Guptill, David Warner, Gautam Gambhir, Manish Pandey, Jos Buttler, Krunal Pandya, Mustafizur Rahman, Sandeep Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah

Captain for today’s game: David Warner

If Guptill plays today, do get him in, if not, you could go with Andre Russell from tomorrow’s game.