IPL 4: The probable eleven of Kochi Tuskers Kerala against Royal Challengers Bangalore

Kochi Tuskers Kerala will host the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kochi on Saturday 9th April.

KTK, led by Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene, has the following other non-Indian players to choose from: Brad Hodge, Thisara Perera, Owais Shah, Steven Smith, John Hastings, Michael Klinger, Brendon McCullum, Muttiah Muralitharan and Steve O’Keefe .

To come up with the best possible eleven that KTK could field against RCB, we need to pick three more non-Indian players from the list above. That would be in accordance with the restriction of four foreign players allowed, in any IPL team.

Brendon McCullum and Murali are automatic picks. Both McCullum and Jayawardene are specialist hitters, while Murali is a specialist pitcher. For my fourth pick, therefore, I would prefer a player who is capable of all aspects. To that end, I have five options, at O’Keefe, Perera, Shah, Hodge and Hastings. I decided to pick Hodge because of his superior experience and his better hitting ability. Hodge is also a helpful part-time bowler. (By the way, I’ve had to overlook Klinger, who is a hitting specialist.)

Among Indian players, Jadeja is an automatic pick, in my eleven, thanks to his skills in every way. One problem with KTK is a glut of bowlers, among the more well-known Indian bowlers. This puts more pressure on Jayawardene, McCullum and Hodge, due to the team’s overconfidence in the hitting success of these three players.

Given the circumstances, Parthiv Patel’s hitting looks better than it really is, and gets my vote. In the absence of KTK’s batting options, I’ve also gone for VVS Laxman, who is best known for batting him in Test cricket, and is not an automatic choice, due to the limited variety of the game.

We have four more places left to fill, and Sreesanth, a specialist bowler, will surely be one of them. I would also go for Ramesh Powar, whose hitting ability is greatly underrated. Thanks to his good showing in past IPL editions, Vinay Kumar is likely to be in my eleven ahead of RP Singh.

I have one spot left to fill, and my prescription is for a hitting specialist, to be chosen from among several young unknowns. Yashpal Singh is my final pick as the 29 year old batsman outclasses others with his 50+ average in first class cricket. Singh also has a decent 32+ average in T20 games.

In choosing Singh, I had to ignore the claims of Srivastava, a promising young starter, with a top-class batting average of over 33. I also did not choose Madan, who played for the Mumbai Indians in IPL 3 and had a outstanding average of 50.66 in T20 matches. Another impressive player that I have chosen to ignore is Akhil, who was previously on the Royal Challengers Bangalore team.

Of the remaining players, I consider Jadhav to be the best bet. The young player has a first-class batting average of 41. He also has a T20 average of 19.30, accompanied by a decent strike rate of over 134.

My final eleven is a mixture of 4 hitters, 3 versatile and 4 pitchers. It has the superficial appearance of a balanced side, until you consider that many of these players have not been consistent performers in the recent past.