IPL 2018: 3 teams that lack squad depth

There have been instances of teams in the past who struggled to gain momentum back after losing one of their mainstay players to injury, national call-up, or other reasons in the IPL.

Such circumstances are unpredictable, on account of which the franchises aim to secure replacements for their mainstream players beforehand to prevent their team from suffering during the tournament. However, some of them fail to do so.

Let's have a look at three teams with the weakest bench-strength ahead of the 2018 edition of the IPL:

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#3 Chennai Super Kings

First Choice Playing XI: Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (c)(wk), Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Lungi Ngidi, Shardul Thakur

Batting: The batsmen in reserve for CSK are Murali Vijay and Sam Billings (wk), who aren't established figures in their respective international limited-overs teams. Vijay, who plays only Tests for India, has been out of touch of late while Billings usually warms the benches for England. The other options are rookies like Dhruv Shorey & N Jagadeesan, who might not be the go-to men at the IPL level.

Bowling: Do they have options to replace Dwayne Bravo and co. if the unfortunate happens? CSK have Mark Wood, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif to turn to but lack an experienced & genuine T20 specialist, who can instantly pick things up in the middle of the tournament.

All-rounder: The Dhoni-led side have some key all-rounders like Bravo, Watson & Jadeja but all of them are likely to feature in the eleven. The Kiwi all-rounder, Mitchell Santner's injury has added to their concerns, with a replacement yet to be announced.

#2 Rajasthan Royals

RR bagged the two most expensive players in the 2018 auctions

First Choice Playing XI: Rahul Tripathi, Ajinkya Rahane, Steve Smith (c), Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Stuart Binny, K Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jofra Archer

Batting: Out of all the resources that RR own, only D'Arcy Short looks reliable and even he is yet to play an IPL game. An injury to one of their Indian batsmen would push RR to change their whole combination. Moreover, over-reliance on overseas players will mean they cannot play both Short and Buttler together.

Bowling: Ben Laughlin is the only reliable backup option that RR have. An ordinary Dushmantha Chameera and Anureet Singh are the other reserves. However, the spin-tank looks decent with Ankit Sharma & Afghan chinaman Zahir Khan Pakteen as the bench-men.

All-rounder: Royals are so dependant on their first eleven that they have the best all-rounder in the world in Ben Stokes but no back-up. They can only hope for him to remain fit throughout.

#1 Kolkata Knight Riders

Are

KKR overdependent on foreign resources?

First Choice Playing XI: Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, R Vinay Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav

Batting: Keeping aside their injury woes, the other concern for KKR is their weak bench-strength. They have unremarkable names like Ishank Jaggi, Apoorv Wankhade and Rinku Singh who are not ones to place money on.

Bowling: The only trusted pace backup is Mitchell Johnson, an overseas commodity. There is a dearth of experienced Indian alternatives. However, the spin department looks pretty handy with veteran Piyush Chawla on the sidelines.

All-rounder: KKR have included a couple of new faces in Cameron Delport & Javon Searles. Both of them lack experience in Indian conditions and that might backfire on the two-time champs.