Chennai Super Kings retains Dhoni, Raina, Albie & Vijay

And no surprises in Chennai Super Kings retention. And.. they have made the same choices as mine. Retained players below

1. MS Dhoni
2. Suresh Raina
3. Albie Morkel
4. Murali Vijay

With the easy decisions made, now comes the hard decisions - who to buy in the auction. 

Key Things to Remember

1. 4 players are going to cost 50% of the $9 Million budget for all teams. So Chennai & Mumbai are lucky that they got much more value for their $4.5 Million. But to retain this advantage, Chennai should choose next 3 players who will cost 25% of the $9 Million budget wisely
2. Key Positions for Chennai in which they have to invest their 25%: 
1. Opener (preferably left-handed to compliment Vijay)
2. Strike Fast Bowler 
3. Strike Spinner
3. Indians as much as possible. As last IPL showed, World-Class Indians are much more valuable than World Class Foreigners
4. Buy them Young: Unlike the first auction, this team will never change. So it is crucial that CSK builds the most successful franchise rather than just focusing on short-term gains

Objective: Build a World-Class Team. 

My pick of 15 players below... (Players in bold text are my picks)

1. Opener 1 - Vijay
2. Opener 2 - atleast 2 of them to bought
1. Gambhir
2. Shaun Marsh
3. Davy Jacobs
4. Warner
3. Raina
4. Atleast 3 of them to be bought
1. Eoin Morgan
2. Ross Taylor
3. Pujara
4. Uthapa
5. Badrinath
5. 1 Batsman from above list
6. Dhoni
7. Albie Morkel
8. Bowling Allrounder
1. Broad
2. Maharoof
9. Spinner 1
1. Ashwin
2. Ojha
3. Shadab Jakati
4. Swann
10. Spinner 2 - 1 Player from above list
11. Strike Fast Bowler
1. Zaheer Khan
2. Ashish Nehra
3. Bollinger
4. Theron

Do you agree with my picks? Do you have any suggestions for Chennai Super Kings Team w.r.t auction? Post your comments below. 

IPL 4 Auction: Base Prices of Players

BCCI is slowly getting its machinery together for the IPL auctions on Jan 8 &9. It has decided a provincial base price for  all the individual players participating in the auction. And now the team is in the process of getting the players approval on the base prices. 

Key Information

BCCI has created 5 different base prices for the IPL 4 auctions. 

1. Base Price of 400,000 USD - Approximately 1.84 crore rupees
2. Base Price of 300,000 USD - Approximately 1.38 crore rupees
3. Base Price of 200,000 USD - Approximately 0.92 crore rupees
4. Base Price of 100,000 USD - Approximately 0.46 crore rupees
5. Base Price of 50,000 USD - Approximately 0.23 crore rupees

Around 62 Indian players & 5 TN Players (Dinesh Karthik, S Badrinath, R Sathish, R Ashwin, M Vijay & L Balaji) would be available through auction. Just listed down the base prices of few players that might be of interest to CSK Fans. 

1. Base Price of 400K USD - Dhoni, Shane Watson
2. Base Price of 300K USD - Raina, Muralitharan, Malinga, Pollard
3. Base Price of 200K USD - Irfan Pathan, Murali Vijay, Ojha, Sreesanth, 
4. Base Price of 100K USD - Pujara
5. Base Price of 50K USD - Manpreet Gony, Sudeep Tyagi, Sridharan Sriram

Remember this is just a provincial list. And the players still have the option to change the base price category in which they are listed. 


Sources

1. Economic Times - Sachin, MSD's IPL base price Rs 1.84 crore, Sourav's Rs 92 lakh

2. DNA - IPL auction: Players want base price kept low

Deccan Herald Reports on CSK's Retention

Deccan Chronicle reports that Chennai Super Kings are set to retain 

1. Dhoni 

2. Raina

3. Vijay

4. Albie Morkel.

Other Key Information from the news article

1. CSK will go flat out for Ashwin in auction. Murali has been communicated the same. 

2. Mumbai Indians are set to retain Sachin Tendulkar, Lasith Malinga, Kieron Pollard (both overseas) and Harbhajan Singh

3. Delhi are set to retain Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Ashish Nehra

4. Pune Warriors offered captaincy to Raina. But Raina chose to stay with Chennai Super Kings. 

Personally, I believe that this new article is drawn out from thin air rather than from reliable sources. So read it with a grain of salt.  More newsreports -
DNA Confirms they have not been able to confirm with CSK Team.
ESPNStar says that

Chennai Super Kings has announced the players they would retain.
India captain MS Dhoni, destructive middle order batsman Suresh Raina, opener Murali Vijay and South African all-rounder Albie Morkel, have been held. (Thanks Sri Raghav for the tip]

But still I would believe these reports only after the final list is submitted to BCCI tomorrow. 

Opening Ceremony of IPL - Season 4

Srinivasan shows his might and has ensured that the opening ceremony of IPL - Season 4 would be happening at Chennai. Since Chennai Super Kings are the current IPL Champions, IPL - Season 4 finals would also be happening at Chennai. Lucky that Chennai gets to see both the opening and closing ceremonies of next IPL. 

Auction on Jan 8 & Jan 9

The IPL Governing Council, that met today, has come out with a few key decisions
1. Official Reduction of 10 teams to 8 teams: It has been officially informed that there would be only 8 teams in IPL - Season 4. Final death knell on Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. Thanks to this decision, we don't have live with the new league format.
2.  Auction for IPL - 4 will take place on January 8 & 9. It has postponed from the earlier planned November.
3. Key Change in determining Finalists: Concept of Semi-finals has been removed from IPL. After the league phase is over, top two will play a play-off match that would determine one of the finalists. The team lose in this play-off would play against the winner of the match between 3rd and 4th placed team to determine the other finalist.


Simpler Explanation
Play-off Match: 1 - Team No:1 in League Table Vs Team No: 2 in League Table
Play-off Match 2 - Team No:3 in League Table Vs Team No: 4 in League Table
Play-off Match 3 - Loser of Play-off Match 1 Vs Winner of Play-off Match 2
Winners  of Play-off matches 1 and 3 qualifies for finals.


I have to agree that this is a lot better system that rewards top performing teams in IPL League Phase.