The most lucrative T20 league in the world is going to start on the 19th of September as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has finally decided to hold the tournament in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this IPL guide, we’re going to take a look at the teams and their chances in this year’s competition.

  • Royal Challengers Bangalore:

Let’s start with the unluckiest team in the competition. They have been tagged as ‘chokers’ by fans across the globe as they haven’t won the IPL trophy since the inception of the tournament in 2008.

They have been involved in two IPL finals and they lost on both occasions in 2009 as well as 2016. The current RCB team is led by the Indian captain Virat Kohli. RCB is known for hiring top-notch superstars of T20s as players like AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle have been their main attraction for several years.

The management of RCB has announced a decent squad once again for this year’s competition and their chances are looking quite good on paper.

However, they would still need to benefit from crucial moments in the game and make sure they don’t disappoint their fans by choking. The Aussie T20 captain Aaron Finch is also joining the RCB for IPL 2020 and they would hope he brings some glory effect to the team.

RCB Squad:

Batsmen: Virat Kohli (C), AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Parthiv Patel (wk), Aaron Finch, Joshua Philippe (wk), Shahbaz Ahmed (wk), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Pavan Deshpande.

All-rounders: Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Isuru Udana.

Spinners: Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Adam Zampa.

Fast Bowlers: Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Dale Steyn.

  • Mumbai Indians: 

Mumbai Indians are the most successful franchise in this history of the IPL as they have been crowned champions on four occasions. They’re also the defending champions and Rohit Sharma has been leading them by example. 

The Mumbai fans have been waiting for their team to defend the title on the home grounds of India but the situation surrounding the pandemic has forced the fans to support them while sitting at home. 

The reason behind the success of Mumbai franchise has been their selection policy as they have been quite consistent and are relying on their seasoned campaigners once again to deliver for them. However, they will miss the services of their most successful fast bowler Lasith Malinga in this year’s IPL as he has opted out of the competition for personal reasons. 

Kieron Pollard has had a fantastic CPL and he’s going into the IPL with a lot of runs under his belt. He also played a match-winning knock in the IPL 2019 final as Mumbai managed to beat Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the grand finale. 

The blue team is now heading towards another potentially successful journey ahead of the IPL 2020 and they have come up with a pretty destructive squad.

Mumbai Indians Squad:

Batsmen: Anmolpreet Singh, Ishan Kishan (wk), Quinton de Kock (wk), Rohit Sharma (C), Chris Lynn, Sherfane Rutherford, Saurabh Tiwary, Suryakumar Yadav, Aditya Tare (wk).

Fast bowlers: Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Digvijay Deshmukh, Mohsin Khan, Mitchell McClenaghan, James Pattinson, Mohsin Khan, Dhawal Kulkarni. 

Spinners: Rahul Chahar.

All-rounders: Nathan Coulter-Nile, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Anukul Roy, Prince Balwant Rai, Jayant Yadav.

  • Chennai Super Kings: 

The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are one of the most consistent and strong teams of the competition. Led by the legendary MS Dhoni, the Yellow Army has lifted the IPL trophy thrice in 2010, 2011 and 2018. 

The captain of CSK MS Dhoni has announced retirement from international cricket recently and he will be joining the CSK camp for this year’s IPL after a long break from cricket. The CSK management was jolted some days ago as some of the players and support staff members were tested positive for Covid-19. 

However, some of their main players have rejoined the squad and the support staff members are expected to join the camp in the next couple of days. CSK’s most destructive top-order batsman Suresh Raina has left the squad due to personal reasons and this is a massive setback for them. They will be looking to gain from the experience of Shane Watson among other seasoned campaigners. Harbhajan Singh has also opted out of the competition due to unknown reasons. 

CSK Squad: 

Batsmen: MS Dhoni (C) (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Murali Vijay, Kedhar Jadhav, Narayan Jagadeeshan (wk), Faf du Plessis.

Spinners: Imran Tahir, Piyush Chawla, R Sai Kishore, Karn Sharma.

Fast bowlers: Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Shardul Thakur, Monu Kumar, Josh Hazlewood.

All-rounders: Shane Watson, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Dwayne Bravo, Sam Curran.

  • Rajasthan Royals: 

Rajasthan Royals were the first official champions of the inaugural edition of the IPL in 2008. They achieved that feat under the leadership of Shane Warne and since then, they haven’t been able to replicate the performance of the first season. 

They have made some changes to their squad this time around and brought in some youngsters that have performed at the U19 level such as Yashasvi Jaiswal. The good thing for the Rajasthan Royals is that their successful captain of the 1st season in 2008 Shane Warne is coming back as their mentor. 

The Royals are going to be captained by Steve Smith and he’s been joined by some of the biggest T20 stars such as Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer. The Royals will be gearing up for a successful season ahead as they have a pretty decent pace battery as well. 

RR Squad: 

Batsmen: Steve Smith (C), Jos Buttler (wk), Manan Vohra, David Miller, Riyan Parag, Robin Uthappa, Sanju Samson (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat (wk).

Fast bowlers: Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Andrew Tye, Varun Aaron, Jaydev Unadkat, Kartik Tyagi, Akash Singh, Jofra Archer.

Spinners: Mayank Markande.

All-rounders: Shreyas Gopal, Ben Stokes, Tom Curran, Shashank Singh, Mahipal Lamror, Rahul Tewatia, Anirudha Joshi. 

  • Sunrisers Hyderabad: 

Sunrisers Hyderabad is a pretty competitive franchise in the IPL as they have lifted the trophy in 2016 when they beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). 

They rely heavily on their strong bowling attack to win them matches and they have also announced a pretty balanced squad for the upcoming season of the IPL. Led by the destructive Aussie opener David Warner, the Sunrisers Hyderabad has announced a squad full of superstars. 

The Afghan duo of Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi has been retained by them and there is a clear indication that they are looking to repeat their performance of 2016. 

SRH squad: 

Batsmen: David Warner (C), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Kane Williamson, Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, Priyam Garg. Virat Singh, Sandeep Bavanka, Shreevats Goswami, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad.

Fast bowlers: Siddharth Kaul, Billy Stanlake, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Sandeep Sharma. 

Spinners: Shahbaz Nadeem, Rashid Khan. 

All-rounders: Vijay Shankar, Fabian Allen, Mohammad Nabi, Mitchell Marsh, Sanjay Yadav.

  • Kings XI Punjab: 

Kings XI Punjab is perhaps one of the unluckiest franchises in the history of the IPL. They came really close to winning the competition in 2014 when they were knocked down by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the finale. 

The Kings XI franchise has been performing reasonably well in the previous competitions but they haven’t been able to form a long-term sustainable squad. 

They haven’t won the trophy yet but they are looking to grab it for the first time under the leadership of KL Rahul. With the inclusion of Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran and Glenn Maxwell, the team from Punjab is looking quite decent. 

They have some good spinners and some quality all-rounders in their squad and it would be pretty difficult for the management to come up with a final playing XI. 

KXIP Squad: 

Batsmen: KL Rahul (C), Ishan Porel, Mandeep Singh, Karun Nair, Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Sarfraz Khan (wk), Nicholas Pooran (wk), Simran Singh (wk), Darshan Nalkande, Tajinder Singh.

All-rounders: Jimmy Neesham, Chris Jordan, Deepak Hooda, Glenn Maxwell, Krishappa Gowtham.

Spinners: Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Ravi Bishnoi, Murugan Ashwin, Jagadeesha Suchith, Harpreet Brar.

Fast bowlers: Hardus Viljoen, Sheldon Cottrell, Mohammad Shami, Arshdeep Singh. 

  • Delhi Capitals:

Previously known as Delhi Daredevils, the Capitals changed their name in the last season and they are currently led by the dynamic middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer. This franchise from Delhi has been struggling for results as they are one of the three teams not to win an IPL title. 

Iyer led them well in the last season but they couldn’t make it to the finals of the competition. They have some extremely destructive players like Rishabh Pant and some senior pros as well like Ravichandran Ashwin.

All-rounders like Marcus Stoinis and pacers like Kagiso Rabada are going to be the centre of attention for the fans in this team.

DC Squad: 

Batsmen: Shreyas Iyer (C), Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Shimron Hetmyer, Alex Carey (wk), Prithvi Shaw, Rishabh Pant (wk).

All-rounders: Keemo Paul, Axar Patel, Marcus Stoinis, Ravichandran Ashwin.

Fast bowlers: Kagiso Rabada, Mohit Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Avesh Khan, Anrich Nortje, Tushar Deshpande, Harshal Patel.

Spinners: Sandeep Lamichhane, Amit Mishra. 

  • Kolkata Knight Riders: 

The Knight Riders are also one of the most popular franchises in the Indian Premier League (IPL) as they have secured the title twice in 2012 and 2014 under the leadership of their former captain Gautam Gambhir.

They are currently led by the wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik and they have brought some significant changes to their overall squad for this season.

The addition of Pat Cummins to their pace battery is a huge bonus for them and the likes of Eoin Morgan, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell are going to blow away the opposition once again with their aggressive mindset. 

KKR Squad: 

Batsmen: Dinesh Karthik (C), Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Siddhesh Lad, Rinku Singh, Tom Banton, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan, Nikhil Naik (wk).

All-rounders: Andre Russell, Sunil Narine.

Fast bowlers: Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Harry Gurney, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier.

Spinners: Manimaran Siddharth, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Chris Green.