Rewind 2013 – MPL final, which the Avengers were not in. Each team played their part and had their moments. Each team was punctuated by terrific highs and lows. But, one team stood at the last spot, like they wrote a script of their own. It was temperament and decision making taking a back seat, that took apart an in-form team to the last spot. As if that wasn’t enough, the captain didn’t even cross the double digit score of his own. To a certain degree, such effort brought the “spirit to fight until you prevail and impossible is nothing” down to zero. A player, with no cricketing mind, Ankit can only be punished in one way – captain the team again.

As the season progressed, Avengers were slowly but surely been identified as “Losing XI”. This was evident from my performance. In spite of sheer brilliance from multiple members of the Avengers squad:

1. Amol scored the most runs in the MPL 2013.
2. He also had the highest inning score of 49* in MPL 2013.
3. Amol shows up as one of the top 10 players in MPL 2013.
4. Vijay appeared in top 10 wicket taking bowler’s list.
5. Vivek and Vijay were the 2nd best in fielding points.

Avengers now needed a leader, one who goes through the whole thing again, who might learn from my mistakes. And who better to do so, than myself, the first Avenger.

When the decision was made that a new team will be formed, I was really excited at the prospect of probably not coming last, but then they announced the team and it made that dream a little hard.

Knowing that I will be leading Avengers again, I wanted Amol in the team, but was not sure if Amol wanted to be an Avenger. Once that question was out of the way, Amol was confirmed as the second Avenger.

Now it was between Anand, Vivek and Adai. However, Anand pointed out that Vivek and Adai would be a better choice for their role as all rounders. Adai didn’t play almost the entire last season, but I know he can be a great guy to have on the team. Similar to Vivek, he can bat as well as bowl. And folks who have played with both Vivek and Adai know what I am talking about. In the end, since Adai’s name starts with “A” as well – I decided to go for “A”dai to join the “A”vengers along with “A”mol and “A”nkit.

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This is the part one of the second, in a four-part post. I’d pinged each of the four MPL 2013 team captains to send me, in their own words, their thoughts on why they chose the player they did, to captain their respective squads for MPL 2014.

The following is what Sir Mayank, the former captain of Justice League, sent in.

As the season progressed, Justice League was slowly but surely been identified as “Kaushik’s XI”. This was evident from his statistics. Kaushik,

1. scored the highest number of points and hence was the number #1 ranked player in the league.
2. has the highest number of points accumulated as a batsman.
3. was the 3rd highest run scorer in the league.
4. has the best Economy Rate for someone who has taken at least 5 wickets in the season.

Justice League now needs a strong leader, one who leads the team by example. Who better than Kaushik, the heart and soul of the team.

Kaushik’s thoughts, on why he retained Mayank and Ganesh are as follows

I was mainly looking for two all rounders. Having said that, there were quite a few players in Justice League who can bat and bowl, and are good in both. My second criteria was experience in MPL specifically about the other players in the club.

Mayank proved in last season that he is a bat with a great temperament. Without the burden of captaincy, I am sure he will only do better. He is also a very under-rated bowler. I believe that Mayank is a great bowler just because he is very disciplined and knows what he is doing.

Ganesh is undoubtedly the most skilled and dedicated player we have had. Justice League has put him in tough situations and has curtailed him from playing his natural game. I believe that we as a team need to give him a better platform this time.

Above all, all three of us are so different in our attitude and approach to the game, which I think will be the key in striking a balance. We are so desperate to re-write history and none others would know better as to how it feels to lose after fighting so hard.

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This is the part one of the first, in a four-part post. I’d pinged each of the four MPL 2013 team captains to send me, in their own words, their thoughts on why they chose the player they did, as captain for their respective squads for MPL 2014.

The following is what Rafeeq, the former captain of X-Men, sent in.

Rewind 2013 – MPL final, the stakes were high as much as the expectations. Each side played their best cards and the moments in the game were punctuated by terrific highs and lows. But, one player stood between Incredibles and their victory, like he wrote a script of his own.

It was temperament and belligerence coming to the fore, that took apart an in-form attack to bits. If it wasn’t enough, you’d take the match to a super-over and post 18 runs to defend.

To a certain degree, the effort restored the “spirit to fight until you prevail and impossible is nothing”. A team player, with a keen cricketing mind, Rohith would make an excellent captain for MPL 2014.

Rohith’s thoughts, on why he retained Rafeeq and Yashwanth are as follows

My first choice, retaining Yashwanth, is fairly straight forward and there wasn’t much thought process behind this. His stats in all the departments of the game speak for themselves and is the ideal man to have in the team.

My second choice required lot more thinking and sometimes to iterate, to lay the groundwork for my decision. First of all, let’s look at the candidates, excluding Yash, that could have been retained. Rafeeq, Anil, Koundi, Pritish, Anuj and GK would have made it to the list.

Looking at the list, Anil would been the obvious choice, not just because of his batting, and bowling, but also for his fielding.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t in-line with my thought process (I would say MPL format) and I wasn’t willing to let go of a bowler, the highest wicket taker last season, who holds no competition in the bowling department. One other critical factor I would say is that although Rafeeq sometimes tends to fare badly against good opposition batsmen, he is very effective against average and lower order batsmen. This might not be obvious to many others and is what I have noticed of Rafeeq over the past year and half. Lastly, new team this year meant Rafeeq will stack up the wicket columns.

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