Auction TIME ! Were we a bad team in last IPL ?

To say I am excited about this auction would be a stretch. Why ? Well... because we are almost covered. Except may be a FINISHER and a PACER I think we are well sorted. And this IS Important.

I am really looking forward to IPL 2026 because if we can get a decent auction in we would have a Really SOLID Team just like last time. Last year we were in everyone’s playoff’s lists pre start of tournament but then everything just faded away after 4 games. We keep blaming the MI Game. But honestly no one game can become such a huge trigger. Yes we lost it badly. But a lot had happened before (unluckily) and we were in shambles but somehow in the first 4 games winning just papered everything for us and we kept riding our luck. But we became exposed post MI game.

Were we a bad team in the last IPL after auction ? I don't think so. We just had a wretched luck. Wretched Wretched. LUCK. Axar got injured. Natarajan got Injured. JFM lost his form. Brook giving us a L for the 2nd time meant we had no number 4. We basically were without GUN OS Opener / GUN OS Middle Order / Indian All Rounder / Indian Pacer. That is something no one can recover from. We still finished 5. Because of JFM losing form meant we never head a fixed opening combination. Kuldeep also seemed burnt out or nursing an injury. No Nattu meant we had to heavily rely on Mukesh / Mohit. Vipraj really was our find of the tournament.

Right Now our Openers are FIXED. At least to ME they are FIXED. Porel and Rahul. Yes we can buy someone new OS option at auction but my limited point is winning teams have a fixed opening combination. Simple. Whoever is a No 1 / 2 need to stay the same for one freaking IPL. No Change. I don't care who partners RAHUL. But they need to be the same for entire IPL. Rana should come at 3. That seems like a coup deal. I don't know how of all people our team pulled it off. We should buy a No 4 because I don't trust Rizvi enough. Axar Should be 5. Stubbs should be 6. If we can find a good finisher I would be willing to push Stubbs to 3. Ashutosh / Rizvi are both hot and cold. We need a No 7 Desperately. That's our finisher. Vipraj Kuldeep Natrajan Starc complete our XI.

I still think retaining Mukesh was a mistake. 8 Cr is a huge amount. But in 21 Cr all I need is a a OS pacer a finisher and backups.

I am putting my head out and unless we have a disastrous auction I think we should be a lock for the Playoff 2026. Because so much can go wrong and does go wrong, we need to take Backups seriously. That's where those 8 Cr could have been beneficial.