Sanjay Manjrekar Picks His Best IPL 2020 XI

Sanjay Manjrekar, the former Indian batsman-turned commentator, recently picked his best possible IPL XI from the ongoing 13th season. And, barring one or two picks, there weren’t many surprises really in the former middle-order batsman’s IPL XI.
A plethora of opening batsman dominated the Dream11 IPL this season. Devdutt Padikkal had a breakout debut season where he not only became the first batsman to score three half-centuries in his first 4 IPL innings but also the second Indian uncapped player to hammer more than 400 runs in his debut season; Quinton de Kock was as usual for the Mumbai Indians but given the fact that one can choose only 4 foreign players, Sanjay Manjrekar went on to pick the Indian opening duo of Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul.

While Mayank Agarwal had a breakout season this year as he amassed 424 runs in 11 innings at an average of 38.55, KL Rahul finished as the leading run-scorer, having finished the season with 670 runs in 14 innings.

“The idea is to pick players who’ve had a pretty good IPL and I’m going to restrict myself to four foreign players and keep that discipline and make that job tougher. For the opening pair, I’ve gone with KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal. It was very tempting to go for a Quinton de Kock but then I have just four foreign players and I wanted to use them very carefully,” he added.

 

Suryakumar Yadav pips Virat Kohli in Sanjay Manjrekar’s Best IPL XI

Manjrekar went on to pick the ever-so impressive Suryakumar Yadav for the No.3 spot ahead of RCB skipper. Yadav has had another breakout season this year as he once again smashed more than 400 runs for the third season in a row. Yadav was followed by AB de Villiers and Nicholas Pooran, who turned up the heat at the backend of the season after a slow start.

“At No. 5 I’ve got Nicholas Pooran, who’s perfectly suited to bat there. We’re still to see the best of Nicholas Pooran but clearly what you’ve seen so far you can see that he’s a dangerous player,” he said.

Axar Patel proved his worth as a spin-bowling all-rounder this season and the left-arm spinner was chosen for the elusive spot by Manjrekar followed by the spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Rashid Khan.

“Axar Patel is my batting all-rounder. He flies under the radar, but this IPL, he’s delivered the match winning, little doses of impact performance to make a difference. Mohammed Shami has been great bowling in the death so he’ll be my pick. I’ll go with KL Rahul as my wicketkeeper-batsman.” Sanjay Manjrekar said.

”Ace leg-spinners Rashid Khan and Yuzvendra Chahal were the two front line spinners in Manjrekar’s XI along with the presence of Axar Patel as the batting all-rounder,” he added. “I’m going to go with the ever-reliable champion bowler from Afghanistan Rashid Khan and [Yuzvendra] Chahal because he’s had a great IPL and it’s almost like he’s got this freedom from the Chinnaswamy stadium to bowl on these stadiums of the UAE,” Manjrekar added.

As far as the pacers are concerned, Manjrekar went with the likes of Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, and Jofra Archer.

When it comes to fast bowling, I’m looking at Jofra Archer, who better them him to shoulder the ”responsibility. Bumrah, obviously comes in and I don’t think I need to explain.” he signed off.