What is Fantasy Cricket?
Fantasy sports have gained a lot of popularity over the last few years. Fantasy Cricket is a specific genre of Fantasy Sports which involves creating virtual teams from both the teams playing on a match day. The user that chooses the best combination of playing 11 wins the prize pool money. There are various pools available to choose from which have different amounts of prize money. The only skill set required in Fantasy Cricket is your analytical and tactical skills.
Rules of Fantasy Cricket
For every Fantasy Cricket game, a user is given a fixed set of credits that can be used to choose the best possible team according to the user. Though the final team must consist of 11 players and must have a minimum of 1 wicketkeeper, 3 batsmen, 1 all-rounder, and 3 bowlers. You can choose only a maximum of 7 players from a team involved in a matchday. Your final team must also have a captain and a vice-captain that reap extra points based on their performance in the match.
Points System of Fantasy Cricket Premier League
The points rewarding is different for each format of the game in cricket. Though some of the point gradings may be the same in some scenarios. For instance, a player being in the playing 11 is 2 points and points per run made by a player are 0.5 across all the formats. But in the case of wickets taken by a bowler or in caught & bowled scenarios, the points are different across the 3 formats. A Fantasy Cricket team’s Captain will have 2 times the normal points and 1.5 times in the case of the Vice-Captain. Therefore, make sure to read the rules and be aware of the point system beforehand.
Indian Premier League’s History
Indian Premier League, which is abbreviated as IPL has grown to become one of the biggest franchise cricketing tournaments in the world. Started in 2008, with 8 teams, the tournament has seen the best and worst of cricket with all kinds of drama both on-field and off-field as well. IPL has given many youngsters a chance to prove their talent and has helped them cement a place in their respective national teams as well.
Teams in IPL 2020
IPL had initially begun in 2008 with 8 teams which then had some new additions over the years. Though in 2020, it has come back to where it has started with the classic 8 teams of the most popular metropolitans of India. This year’s Indian Premier League will feature Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royal, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad, and Kings XI Punjab.
Previous IPL Winners
Over the last 12 seasons, IPL has seen 5 different winners. Rajasthan Royals in the first season which was followed by Deccan Chargers, now renamed Sunrisers Hyderabad in the next season. The team from the ‘City of Joy’, Kolkata Knight Riders have also won the tournament twice in the years 2012 and 2014. Though the most successful team in the IPL’s history has Mumbai Indians winning the tournament for an astonishing 4 times. Mumbai Indians are followed by their biggest rivals Chennai Super Kings who have won the IPL 3 times and played in the finals 8 times.
IPL 2020 Captains
The Indian Premier League has seen 48 players as captains for their respective teams over the years. This has included both Indian players and overseas players. In this edition of IPL, there is a whole wide range of captains. With the current national team’s skippers and former national team captains, this year of IPL has debut captains who’ll lead their sides into the tournament. Let us look at the IPL captains for the 12th season:
Chennai Super Kings – MS Dhoni
The team from the south, Chennai Super Kings also known as CSK has been one of the most successful teams in the history of the tournament. It has been led by none other than MS Dhoni who has also led the Indian national cricket team. MSD has won 3 IPL trophies for CSK and has also led them to the finals of IPL a whopping 8 times. He will look to redeem himself again this year to cement his place in the World Cup’s T20 squad.
Royal Challengers Bangalore – Virat Kohli
The current captain of the Indian national team has had a roller coaster ride in the IPL. He has been leading RCB since 2013 and has led them to the IPL finals in 2016. He always has been in a red hot form leading his team upfront with his run factors and a strong mindset. He too has to prove himself by winning the IPL and will look to do so this year with the T20 World Cup coming up later this year.
Mumbai Indians – Rohit Sharma
The team from the City of Dreams has surely been on a dream run in the tournament. Winning the IPL 4 times every alternate year since 2013 has been one of the strongest teams in the IPL. Rohit Sharma has been the most successful captain for this team and in the IPL. Having the likes of the T20 specialist players like Jaspreet Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Keiron Pollard, Chris Lynn, De Kock this team will be favorites of many to win the trophy again this year.
Rajasthan Royals – Steve Smith
Although winning the first edition of IPL, Rajasthan Royals haven’t been able to repeat this feat in the tournament. With a change in captaincy this year, led by former Australian captain, Steve Smith the team will be having high hopes to repeat their performance like the opening season. Steve Smith who is also a highly successful batsman will look to lead the team from the front and prove himself after the past controversies surrounding him.
Sunrisers Hyderabad – Kane Williamson
Sunrisers Hyderabad also abbreviated to SRH have had an on-off kind of an IPL tournament. The captain this season, Kane Williamson who also happens to be the New Zealand captain has already captained the SRH side a couple of seasons ago in 2018. The SRH captain has also led them to the IPL finals of the 2018 but unable to clinch the trophy. The SRH side has had many captaincy changes over the editions and will finally look to find stability this season under Kane Williamson.
Kolkata Knight Riders – Dinesh Karthik
The team from Kolkata, KKR have not been able to repeat their past performances like the year 2012 and 2014 where they went on to win the IPL. Under the Dinesh Karthik, they will look to target the trophy having some amazing youth players and T20 specialists such as Andre Russel and Sunil Narine. Dinesh Karthik has had a few spells of captaincy before, leading the India A in Deodhar Trophy and has also led his state team, Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy.
Kings XI Punjab – KL Rahul
The Punjab side has always looked to be the underdogs of the IPL. Although they made it to the finals of IPL in 2014, they have not been able to win the IPL yet. With a change in captaincy this year, KL Rahul is all set to captain this power-packed team with the likes of Chris Gayle, Mohammed Shami, Sheldon Cottrell, Mayank Agarwal. The captain himself has been in great form since the 2018 World Cup. The KXIP captain has captained the Indian side in a T20I game against New Zealand. He has also been the Vice-Captain for Karnataka in the Vijay Hazare trophy before.
Delhi Capitals – Shreyas Iyer
The Capitals have seen many significant changes in the team over the past couple of years. With a mix of young players and veteran players, the team looks to have a good balance this year. Shreyas Iyer, leading this side has done a pretty great job in the last edition taking the team to the Play-Offs. He has grown exponentially playing regularly in the Indian side internationally and will look to invest his wisdom in this Delhi Capitals side.
Winning Percentage of Captains of 2020
This season of IPL features captains of mixed variety. With former country captains, current national captains and upcoming captains it will be interesting to see how they fare. Let us look at statistics of the current captains in the IPL who have previously captained in the tournament.
MS Dhoni
The most experienced captain of the lot, MSD has captained 174 matches in his career and won 104 matches out of those. He has a phenomenal win percentage of 60.11% and will look forward to maintaining this feat. He is considered to be one of the best captains in the IPL.
Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli is the second captain behind MSD to have captained the most matches in their IPL careers. Captaining over 110 IPL matches in his career, Virat has had a decent winning percentage of 47.16%. He will be looking to improve his record this year by winning more matches.
Rohit Sharma
Mumbai Indians Skipper Rohit Sharma has captained 104 matches in his IPL career. He has the second-highest win percentage of the captains playing in this IPL. He has a great winning percentage of 58.65% and is also argued to be the best IPL captain in the tournament. He will be looking to put his best efforts to win the trophy again this year.
Steve Smith
The former Ozzy captain has had a short spell of captaincy in the IPL with captaining only 25 matches in the IPL. He has won 17 of these 25 games which have led to his excellent win percentage of 68.00%.
Kane Williamson
Captaining the SRH side again this year, Kane has already captained 26 matches in his IPL career and has a very good win percentage of 55.76%. Winning 14 games in his short spell of captaincy, the SRH captain will look to increase this percentage as he has a whole season of captaincy ahead of him.
Dinesh Karthik
Having captained the KKR side only for 2 seasons, Dinesh Karthik hasn’t seen much captaincy apart from this. He has captained 22 games in his IPL career and won half of those. He has had a decent win percentage of 50% in IPL. Many of the fans and critics will be looking at this benchmark season for Dinesh Karthik
Shreyas Iyer
Much like the majority of the IPL captains in this season, Shreyas Iyer has had the captaincy job only for a couple of seasons. He has led the Delhi team for a total of 24 matches and impressed many fans and critics. He has a 56.25% winning percentage. It’ll be interesting to see how he takes his team forward this season.
KL Rahul
Although this is the first time KL Rahul is captaining his side in the IPL, the KXIP captain has evolved to become a senior player for his side in the Indian team and Karnataka. He has led the team in a T20I against New Zealand and also won it. His ability to lead the team in both state and international level has won many matches and will be an interesting team to watch this season.
How IPL 2020 affects the T20I World Cup
A lot is at stake for many of the players and the IPL captains this season. With the upcoming T20 World Cup in October this year, players will look to impress their national selectors to cement a place in their national sides. IPL has truly evolved to be one of the most prestigious T20 leagues in the world cup that can shape how the teams and players will look to improve their skills and captaincy skills for the upcoming tournament.
