Fantasy 11 ... |
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| Venkata Nagendra Kumar Akula (nag.akula@yahoo.com) | |
| 11/18/2021 | |
Fantasy 11 !!!...This is probably the most favorite topics in cricket, and you can choose in different formats and for almost every 5 years or so, in international cricket, as younger players storm into respective country teams. Cricket or any other sport for that matter, is all about younger talent with experience of playing competitive cricket. Current younger generation has so much more opportunity window with respect to various platforms to play competitive cricket, by the time someone starts to play for their country they would have already played under19 teams and would have travelled across the globe to get accustomed to different playing conditions.Well, back to FCL (Frisco Cricket League) which is more like club cricket with fantasy yellow ball. You definitely need to know few things like the yellow ball, flat pitches, weather conditions in north Texas in first half Vs second half of the year etc. to plan your Fantasy 11 for FCL. Feel free to read my article about FCL cricket to get a fair idea on that note. Before we get started with picking players from the pool, to get to Fantasy-11, lets first define what we need to look for from each of the playing positions like Opening Pair, number-3, so on and so forth. You will not be surprised to understand the importance of team manager, team captain, marketing director etc.. at club cricket level (if you have played for some time at this level). Because these people have to have unique skills as they do all the heavy lifting and sometimes clean up the dirty laundry behind the scenes. So, here we go. Marketing Director: This is most under rated or overlooked role but is very vital for survival of any league as you have to have Passion, clear vision, unbiased thinking, lots of people management skills and most importantly, “clear/crisp/matured communication skills” among many more qualities. While there are lots of leaders and passionate people in FCL who are leading their respective teams, and some are just playing cricket for their teams, there is one and only one person who has all the above skills and is ready to be a bad boy sometimes, to make sure the league sails through as smooth as possible and that is “Mr. Rajan Dwivedi”. Team Manager: Team Manager is something I wanted to separate from captain, as quite often, in most of the leagues captain acts as Team Manager. This role requires enormous amounts of people management skills along with uncluttered decision-making skills. It’s wonderful if you can be great communicator but its very important to have people management skills and you can have your own way of communicating with team. All my FCL leads fall under this category and its quite unfair if I chose someone over other as I might not know the functioning style of all these great leads. However, knowing what I know, I definitely need to make best possible choices. Some of the top team managers in the consideration are Madhu Yandrathi, Gulam Mohammed, Ravi Nellutla, Bodhayan Sharma, Yuvi Gurunatham, Senthil Mohan, Balaji Veeramani, Maheedhar Reddy, Jayesh Barai, Rohit Raghavendra, Srinivas Korikanti, Rajeev Kumar, Arjun Gona, Bharat Sain, Vikramjeet Singh to name a few. However I definitely will have to struggle quite a bit to pick between two stalwarts “Rakesh Kumar Gaddam” and “Rajendra Perni”. Its baffling to see how these folks manage multiple teams in various formats and maintain a pool of 100+ players for quite some time and maintain successfully. Absolutely astonishing. I am really tempted to have them both for this role and if I only have to pick one at any cost, I would be biased towards Rajendra Perni only because I have seen him more closely and actually have played under him in few tournaments. Sorry Rakhi Bhai, Raja Bhai got .000001% (its like crazy crypto numbers) more votes than you 😊 Here comes the playing 11. Opening Pair. Just like most of the shorter versions of cricket FCL needs devastating hitters who can terrorize bowlers and score runs at more than 10 an over in first 6 overs and so the selection for opening batsman is quite straight forward. See the ball, hit the ball, weather its fast bowler, spinner or swing bowler, batsman should be ready to take them on and send the ball out of park more frequently. Basically, I need two power hitters who can hit any kind of bowler in first 6 overs. There are quit a few players in this category in FCL. Perhaps that’s why FCL is very popular in this part of the world. Some of the names are, “Udai Kanukolanu”, “Vivek Rai”, “Abhishek Jasthi”, “Anil Kandukuri”, “Srikanth Chinthakunta”, “Ankith Khera”, “Ali Samad”, “Ajay Masand”, “Vasanth Bobbala”. My Personal pick for opening are Vivek Rai and Ankith Khera. They can destroy any bowler, most importantly both fast bowlers and spinners and in any conditions. Number-3. I believe one of the most important position in cricket in any format. This requires special skills. You need to be able to play big shots like the openers, should one of them fall cheaply. You should also be able to steady the ship should both of them fall cheaply and suddenly you are 2 down in power play. We expect number-3 to be able to build the innings, tackle the bowlers who are already on top, Pearce the gaps and pick 2s and 3s and once opportunity is thrown at you, should be able to capitalize and play long/big innings. This is really specialty role and honestly there are not too many players who can do this job to perfection. Some of the players considered for this role are Khalid Khan, Gulam Mohammad, Brihu Padbhanabhan, Deepak Valluru, Anoj Malalasekera, Bhargav. However, the standout would be “Dave Jivnani”. He does fulfill all the requirements with lots of aggression in FCL. He plays the shots with full flourish and pulverizes bowlers once he make sures he gets his eye in. Most importantly he values his wicket so much so, almost every time he is out, he takes few seconds pause on the pitch to realize what mistake he has done to get out. So, he is best fit for number-3 position. Middle order: I would club number 4, number 5 and even number 6 into middle order category. The criteria is simple, if top order fails middle order should first do catching up and then accelerate and towards the end. Not many teams or batters realize the importance of these positions. Biggest qualification should be to be able to play slow bowlers well, use your feet, run lots of 1s, 2s and even 3s and punish bad ball. Soft hands, magical wrists, playing into gaps and running between wickets is biggest attribute required for a middle order batter. Some of the players in this category are Deepak, Vishal, Bharadwaj K, Nikesh K, Pradeep Mukkamala, Shakthi Singh, Dikshith Reddy, Ali Hyder, Harikrishna Gogisetti, Senthil Mohan, Chirag Mahopatra, Sankirth Bathhula, Rohith Reddy. Its tough call to pick from this pool as these are most exiting and match winning players and my pick would be Deepak at 4, Sankirth at 5, and Dikshith at 6. Lower order bowling allrounders: Number 7, Number 8 and even Number 9 if you bat deep would be your Bowling allrounders. These are good bowlers who can hit boundaries and sixes from ball one. More like Polards and Russels. You will find some really fascinating allrounders in FCL who would be perfect fit for these slots. Some of such monsters are, Ravikanth Reddy, Shakthi Singh, Avinash Matchitti, Jayesh Barai, Chaithanya Kumar Avula, Richi , Ramesh Ravivardhan, Karthik Selvaraj , Raghu Ramayanam, Ashok T, Mihir. You would really be tempted to have all of them in your side as they such devastating allrounders. So my pick would be Shakthi Singh at 7, Richi at 8 and Ashok at 9 Specialist Bowlers: Number 10 and Number 11 are usually your specialist bowlers. However, this is truer for international teams. At club cricket level, you hardly get pure specialist bowler, but you often get more of bowling allrounders who are power hitters as well. So, if someone is picked at number 10, we should not be fooled to think he is tailender. I am also very much tempted to pick quality spinner at number 11. I know at international level you would pick couple of spinners, even for t-20. However, at club cricket its usually huge thing if you have a dedicated spinner in your playing 11 and in FCL, with yellow ball, its very hard to have a specialist spinner as its extremely difficult to spin as well as spin with accuracy (especially with very light-yellow ball under windy conditions on flat pitches). And consider the fact that there is no LBW as this is soft ball. Long story short, bowlers in FCL are rare commodity and spinners are like gladiators who are ready to sacrifice themselves in the arena 😊. However, with larger square boundaries and on the grounds that batsman is batting against winds and most importantly with lots n lots of practice “to spin yellow ball and land in right areas” it’s still possible to trouble batsman. So, its worth to take a quality spinner, especially if batsman is playing against wind. With that long explanation, my number 10 would be Avinash M and my number 11 would be Navneeth / Nag Akula. Both Avinash and Navneeth are terrific allrounders and opens for their teams in other leagues as well. So don’t get fooled by the batting order. And as I said club cricket and especially FCL if you are picking Fantasy 11, you would definitely be tempted to pick allrounders if have them available. Bench: You would also like to have bench strength covering for injuries, fatigue etc. You would like to have an extra opener, number 3, 4 and couple of bowling allrounders and an extra keeper. I will definitely be eager to add Abhishek Jasthi as additional opener, Brihu Padmanabhan (he would walk into any team with his extraordinary fielding abilities along with good bowling, batting. Not to forget he has most disguising slow ball) and Bharath (Bharadwaj Kasinaduni) in top order. Ravikanth Reddy, Karthik Selvaraj would be my allrounders warming the bench. Chandu Vallabhaneni or Pradeep Mukkamala would be my back up Wicket Keeper and I might pick Chandu for his power hitting. Finally, I would definitely pack left arm chainman bowler Minesh along with another leg spinner Srini Korikanti So here we go, here is the FF11 (FCL Fantasy 11) Marketing Director: Rajan Dwivedi Team Manager: Raja Perni Playing-11: Vivek Rai , Ankith Khera, Dave Jivnani, Deepak Valluri, Sankirth Batthula, Dikshith Reddy, Shakthi Singh, Richard Thalluri , Ashok Tirumalaraju, Avinash Matchitti, Navneet Tiwari/Nag Akula Bench: Abhishek Jasthi, Bharath Kasinaduni, Brihu Padmanabhan, Ravinkanth Reddy , Karthik Selvaraj, Chandu Vallabhaneni, Minesh Jhaveri, Srini Korikanti Now what do you think, leave your comments here… ---- Nag Akula. |
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