IPL 2020: Flop XI of the first two weeks

A fortnight full of action-packed cricket matches later, the Emirates-bound caravan of the Indian Premier League (IPL) arrives into its third week. The past two weeks haven’t had the slightest dearth of top-notch cricket action; from two nail-biting super-over matches, to the highest run-chase recorded in the tournament’s history- plenty has happened on-field to compensate fans missing out on the live-action. 

That said, the tournament hasn’t been about grandeur and stellar-performances all through and through. For every player who came up with a stellar, match-winning performance, there were just about as many who weren’t much able to deliver on their promise, and flattered to deceive.

So many, in fact, that they can all feature in a well-rounded, IPL playing XI.  Who makes it into the team? Who misses out? Let’s find out.

In the article, we analyse the worst playing XI from the first 2 weeks of the 2020 IPL:

1. Shane Watson (CSK)

Time is quickly running out for the Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) hard hitting, 39-year-old Australian opener. Watson arrived into this IPL as the fourth eldest player across all the franchises. He didn’t have much game-time behind him either; his last appearance in a competitive cricket tournament dated back to the Pakistan Super League (PSL) back in March.

Despite these factors, CSK decided to persist with experience and drafted Watto into their first-choice XI. Rightly so- even with his age, Watson, in recent years, has been one of the most consistent performers for CSK. His aggregate of 953 runs from 32 games across the 2018 and 19 seasons is second only to Ambati Rayudu in the entire Chennai setup. 

Unfortunately, his performances in this season so far have hardly done justice to all those impressive stats. Across 4 matches, Watson has managed to score just 52 runs at a less-than-convincing strike-rate of 108.33. Having lost three games on the trot, it seems likely that the CSK team will move ahead with an overhauled approach through the remainder of this season, which could result in Watson making way for one of the upcoming Indian batsmen at the top.