GameDay Squad IND Fantasy Cricket: Review and Preview: In this blog we will have a brief look at the previous and upcoming rounds of the IPL. Over the last week, who's performances stood out and which players made the GDS Squad of the round. For the week ahead, we will look at one player in each match that coaches should consider starting or one player that they should be avoiding. Have a read below and gain an edge over your competition. Let us know your thoughts on who we have down below on all of our social channels: twitter, facebook, instagram, discord.
GDS Squad of the week for rounds 39-45
WKT - Phil Salt (Kolkata Knight Riders) -121 GDS Fantasy Points
WKT/BAT - Yashasvi Jaiswal (Rajasthan Royals) - 94 GDS Fantasy Points
WKT/BAT - Faf du Plessis (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) - 88 GDS Fantasy Points
WKT/BAT - Ruturaj Gaikwad (Chennai Super Kings) - 87 GDS Fantasy Points
AR - Sunil Narine (Kolkata Knight Riders) - 136 GDS Fantasy Points
AR - Ravindra Jadeja (Chennai Super Kings) - 127 GDS Fantasy Points
AR - Marcus Stoinis (Lucknow Super Giants) - 118 GDS Fantasy Points
AR - Nitish Kumar Reddy (Sunrisers Hyderabad) - 102 GDS Fantasy Points
BWL - Mitchell Starc (Kolkata Knight Riders) - 97 GDS Fantasy Points
BWL - Josh Little (Gujarat Titans) - 96 GDS Fantasy Points
BWL - Rahul Chahar (Punjab Kings) - 93 GDS Fantasy Points
Squad Total 1159 points
How many of these players did you start?
Performance of the week
This week this award goes to Sunil Narine. It feels like I keep on mentioning his name but it's for good reason as he has an average of 95.2 points over his eleven matches and is the top ranked player in GDS. In his most recent performance, he smashed 81 off 39 balls and helped KKR to a good first innings score of 235/6. He also featured with the ball and took 1/22 off his four overs. I'll say it again, Narine is a cheat code in GDS, he opens the batting and has bowled his full complement in every match. A player like this is a great asset for GDS coaches and will likely be the first player selected for every KKR match.
Riser
This week the riser award goes to Faf du Plessis. After only averaging 22.5 over his first four matches, FDP has come into a bit of form and is averaging 55.9 over his last seven matches. He has hit three fifties in his last six matches and has now made the squad of the round on six occasions. With him starting to show the form that earned him a rank as the second-best batsman in 2023 and RCB stringing a few wins together as they make their push for the semi-finals. I'm finding that FDP is one of the first selected for my starting XI whenever RCB play. He might not make the squad of the round in every match, but I have a feeling that his best innings of the season is still to come.
Faller
This week the faller award goes to Shubman Gill. After finishing with an average of 70 points in 2023, Gill is having a very disappointing season and is only averaging 37 points. Over his last five starts he has only scored 67 runs and has an average of 16 points in these matches. On top of the Titans having their worst season since their inception a few years ago, Gill has also missed out on selection for the T20 CWC starting next month. He is still a very talented batsman and has gone from an auto pick for my starting XI every time the Titans play, to a very risky selection. Surprisingly, at this stage last season he was averaging 37 points, the exact same as this year. He then went on to score three centuries in his last five matches. We might just see a huge innings from Gill still to come.
Upcoming matches for rounds 46-52
Round 46 - Mumbai Indians vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Travis Head averaging 58.9 points
WKT - Heinrich Klaasen averaging 50.9 points
AR - Abhishek Sharma averaging 46.5 points
BWL - Thangarasu Natarajan averaging 48.3 points
I can't believe I'm about to say this but I'm fading Rohit Sharma in this match. This is a very bold call as he is averaging 41 points this season, but he has only made the squad of the round in four of his eleven matches. He did hit a century against CSK back in mid-April and this was his only score of 50+ runs this season. Since then, he has only scored 65 runs over his last five matches for an average of 18 points. The Mumbai Indians season is all but over and who knows how Sharma will perform for the remainder of the season. When you have the likes of Head, Klaasen and Varma who are all likely to start in this match and they have all performed better than Sharma across the tournament. There is also Yadav, Kishan and Markram as decent starting options. Fading Sharma is a risky play as we all know he can score a century out of nowhere, but it might just be the right thing to do given his recent form.
Round 47 - Delhi Capitals vs Rajasthan Royals
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Jake Fraser-McGurk averaging 61.3 points
WKT - Rishabh Pant averaging 58.4 points
AR - Riyan Parag averaging 54.6 points
BWL - Sandeep Sharma averaging 49 points
Jos Buttler has had a rollercoaster of a tournament. He's scored two cracking centuries but has failed to score more than 35 runs in his other seven matches. Even though there might be safer and more consistent players to select from, I believe his ceiling is just too high for him not to be selected. He will likely be in a lot of GDS coaches starting XIs for this match. Buttler is a risky option, but I'd rather start him knowing that he can absolutely destroy a bowling attack. If he goes big again and would prefer to go with the fail with the pack mentality if he was to be dismissed cheaply.
Round 48 - Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Lucknow Super Giants
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Travis Head averaging 58.9 points
WKT - KL Rahul averaging 62.1 points
AR - Nitish Kumar Reddy averaging 54.6 points
BWL - Thangarasu Natarajan averaging 48.3 points
With most GDS coaches likely to go with Nitish Kumar Reddy, Marcus Stoinis and Abhishek Sharma as three of their four all-rounders in this match, I think Marco Jansen is as good of a pick as any to round out the all-rounder position. He has only played two matches this season and is averaging 27 points. What's interesting about his performances is that he hasn't really featured with the bat or ball and 22 points of the 27-point average comes via fielding. If he manages to hold onto his starting spot against LSG, I think we will see him feature with the ball. So far this season he has bowled seven offers without taking a wicket, he's also been a little wayward and bowled six extras. It's only a matter of time until we see him pick up a couple of wickets and if he has the opportunity with the bat, we might even see him dispatch a couple of balls over the fence.
Round 49 - Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Virat Kohli averaging 69.5 points
WKT - Jonny Bairstow averaging 43.2 points
AR - Sam Curran averaging 53 points
BWL - Harshal Patel averaging 44.5 points
Maxwell has only made the squad of the round in three of his eight matches and has been a massive disappointment for GDS coaches. He has had seven innings, with his highest score of 28 runs coming against KKR. In the other six innings he has failed to reach double digits and has three ducks. This is not what we have come to expect from watching Maxwell over the years. What he does have going for him is his bowling as he has taken five wickets in the twelve overs he has bowled. In saying this, he has only bowled in five of his matches and only on three occasions has he bowled more than one over. Maxwell is a player that can score 100+ points in GDS at any stage but he just hasn't looked at his destructive best with the bat. If any GDS coaches decide to bench Maxwell, I can't blame them. However, just remember that innings against Afghanistan in the CWC last year when he produced one of the best innings the world has ever seen.
Round 50 - Gujarat Titans vs Chennai Super Kings
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Ruturaj Gaikwad averaging 64.5 points
WKT - Wriddhiman Saha averaging 26 points
AR - Ravindra Jadeja averaging 46.7 points
BWL - Matheesha Pathirana averaging 53.5 points
Who to start at wicket keeper, Wriddhiman Saha or the crowd favourite MS Dhoni. I'll be benching Dhoni in this match up, purely because where he bats in the CSK batting order. He has played all eleven matches this season and has spent time at the crease in nine of them for an average of 12.2 runs. Only on three occasions has he come in any higher than seven in the CSK batting order and this really limits his upside for GDS coaches. Even though Saha is only averaging 15.1 runs as an opener, I believe he still offers a higher ceiling than Dhoni as he has more opportunity to spend time at the crease. I'm not saying he's going to outscore Dhoni, I just think that Saha has more of a chance to have the highest score out of these two players in this match.
Round 51 - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Tilak Varma averaging 46.1 points
WKT - Phil Salt averaging 61.3 points
AR - Sunil Narine averaging 95.2 points
BWL - Jasprit Bumrah averaging 45.7 points
We aren't spoiled with too many great options at the all-rounder position in this match and I have Venkatesh Iyer joining Narine, Russell, and Pandya as my starting all-rounders. Iyer is averaging 28.8 for the season but has averaged 44.8 points over his last four matches. He has been more consistent than Nabi and Ramandeep Singh who are the only other players I'm considering to start in this match this far out. With Nabi not being selected in the last Mumbai Indians match and Singh only featuring in the squad of the round once in his eleven matches, Iyer takes the last all-rounder spot for me.
Round 52 - Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Delhi Capitals
Top performing players at each position (minimum 5 matches)
BAT - Virat Kohli averaging 69.5 points
WKT - Rishabh Pant averaging 58.4 points
AR - Riyan Parag averaging 54.6 points
BWL - Matheesha Pathirana averaging 53.5 points
It's always fun when we have four teams to select our players from and we have some tough decisions to make. Even though I have Faf du Plessis as my riser this week, he doesn't get a look in for my starting squad for this round. This has nothing to do with the form that he's in, it's just that there are six players that I have ranked above him for this round. They are Kohli, Gaikwad, JFM, Pant, Samson and Buttler. These six players all average 50+ points, they are all ranked in the top 20 overall and the top 5 at their position. I'm not going to argue with anyone that wants to start FDP, I just think that there are better options this round.