Awadhe Warriors – Preview

UPDATE:
Following a decision from The IBL management that Maneepong Jongjit will not be allowed to participate in the Indian Badminton League, the Awadhe Warriors have signed Danish international Mathias Boe in his place.

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The teams of the Indian Badminton League has, for the moment, been finalized. And even though there is still some unanswered questions it is time to take a closer look at the six teams.

The first preview is for the team that most recently changed its name from Lucknow Warriors to Awadhe Warriors. This is the only teamed not named after its host city but after its region.

Owner: Sahara India Pariwar

Coach: Mohammed Hafiz Hashim

Icon Player: P.V. Sindhu, Women's Singles

ROSTER

Name	Country	Category	Salary	WR
P.V. Sindhu	India	Women’s Singles	80.000 US $	12
Chong Wei Feng	Malaysia	Men’s Singles	25.000 US $	15
R.M.V. Gurusaidutt	India	Men’s Singles	40.000 US $	21
Srikanth K.	India	Men’s Singles	34.000 US $	41
Sapsiree Taerattanachai	Thailand	Women’s Single/ Mixed doubles	15.000 US $	14/135
Mathias Boe	Denmark	Men’s Double/ Mixed doubles	-	3/ -
Markis Kido	Indonesia	Men’s Double/ Mixed doubles	15.500 US $	15/9
Maneesha K.	India	Mixed doubles	26.000 US $	223
Nandagopal K.	India	Men’s Double/ Mixed doubles	10.000 US $	248/223
Ruthvika Shivani	India	Women’s Singles	3.000 US $	184

Expected team composition

Cat.	Player(s)	Power rank.
1.MS:	Chong Wei Feng	6th
2.MS:	R.M.V. Gurusaidutt or Srikanth K.	2nd
WS:	P.V. Sindhu	4th
MD:	Mathias Boe/ Markis Kido	3rd
XD:	Markis Kido/ Sapsiree Taerattanachai	3rd

Money in play: 185.500 US$

What is going to happen regarding Maneepong Jongjit. We know that now. He is substituted by Mathias Boe.
This seem to strengthen the men's double, but make the mixed double a bit more shaky as Kido and Sapsiree are not used to playing together.

The mixeddouble was a very reliable card for the Warrios, but now I expect them to struggle a bit at times. This could lead to the Warriors ending up in the danger zone, as they can no longer count on qualifying to the semifinals. In the men's double however Boe should be poised and ready to show the franchises that they made a mistake, not selecting him in the first place. 

That would be a huge blow to the chances of the Awadhe Warriors, as he in my opinion is one of the key players on the team. He is currently playing mixed double with Sapsiree Taerattanachai in international matches, and I would rank them as the top combination for this event. Also his services is required in the men’s doubles together with megastar Markis Kido. But, at the moment it looks like all this goes down the drain. What a disasters that would be for the Warriors.

The Warriors  have a very well balanced team in most categories but they don’t have a good replacement for Jongjit. Kido, of course could play the mixed double, but it would be a scratch pair and in no way as freighening to their opponents as the two Thais, and the men’s doubles would be quite significantly weakened as well.

Chong Wei Feng is a cheap buy for first singles, though he’s not bad at all. However I have him ranked as number six of the first singles, but it is indeed a close race after the top notch Lee Chong Wei. So even though Feng is the lower ranked, I  would not be surprised if he manages to take one or two victories during the two weeks of competition.

On the other hand is the Warriors very strong in the second single. They can tailor their teamcomposition after their opponents, as I expect both Gurusaidutt and Srikanth K. to do well. I think they generally should have the upper hand against all second single opponents except for Marc Zwiebler, and even that match might be a close call.

P.V. Sindhu is ranked 4^th, but the women’s singles  is perhaps the strongest category of all, and what a mouth-watering match we can look forward to when she is to play Saina Nehwal.  I expect her to beat Nicahaon Jindapon and the retired Tine Baun, but she sure stands a chance in all the remaining matches. In case of fatigue or injury Sapsiree Taerattanachai is a very capable replacement for Sindhu, so I really like that acquisition the Warriors made.

I’m not convinced we will see Nandagopal, Shivani or Maneesha on court unless other players are injured or Jongjit is not allowed to participate.

Coaching:  Mohammad Hafiz  Hashim doesn’t really have a proven track record as a coach, and it’s a bit of  surprise to see him in that role. As a player he himself normally stuck to his own playing style no matter what, win or lose. I don’t have high expectations on Hashim to be able to make a big difference in the doubles categories, but perhaps he can make use of his own experience in the singles.

Expected score (with Jongjit): Two to three team wins.

Qualify for the semifinals: Doubtfull

Toughest opponent: Hyderabad Hotshots with women’s singles being the absolute key match.

Notable clashes: Banga Beats. A lot of exciting and crucial encounters in this match. It is the second round of the league on August 15^th and the Warriors are at home in Lucknow.

Conclusion:

With Jongjit on the roster the Warriors are perhaps the most balanced team in the league. Unfortunately they are also the most vulnerable when it comes to male double players, so the Jongjit-case is really life threatening for the team.

 I definitely expect them to do well in 2.MS. If that doesn’t happen them Icon Player P.V. Sindhu will have to step up and impress, and perhaps they could also hope for Chong Wei Feng.

Notice that Feng is not guaranteed a spot on the team, if the H2H indicates that Gurusaidutt has a better chance in 1. MS.

A question mark could be the form of Markis Kido, and that is even more significant should Jongjit be ruled out and the Indonesian veteran is called up for two matches. If that happens they are in real danger of missing the semifinals.

Are Jwala & Ponnappa Icon Player material?

Following the players auction for the Indian Badminton League IBL, a question comes into consideration.

Are Gutta Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa Icon Player material?

You’ve got to ask yourself this question, because if you are to be an Icon Player, and you feel - whether it is justified or not - you have been treated badly by the organizers, by the management, your employer or business partner. Do you then, as an Icon Player, go public to the media with your criticism?

I wouldn’t.

Perhaps I would want to. Perhaps I would want to real badly. But in the end I would refrain from critizing the organizers at this stage.

Now why is that?

First of all I think I can understand the players frustration. It’s very understandable. They were promised something. They even made a contractual agreement. They committed to the idea of an Indian Badminton League, and probably felt proud and honoured to be selected Icon Players.

Then the conditions were changed. No ladies doubles event. Because the profile of Indian female doubles players, together with signed-in international players, could not match the benefits from replacing the category with an additional mens single.

From a marketing point of view – or, as I really know next to nothing about marketing, from an interest, enthusiasm or exitement point of view, this is a very reasonable decision.

The problem of course is that the information level of IBL is quite a bit helter-skelter. Normally, it would be impossible to make this sudden change to the categories.

But the IBL is in its first year. It’s a young organiztion. It’s probably a quite inexperienced organization.  That organization had to make agreements with players, national and international, to have a product at all.

They then had to rope in companies willing to put money and reputation in all this, to be a part of the Indian Badminton League, to make sure it happened at all. I mean its not like the players would have said ”No money, no problem, we’re just gonna come by and play a little team tournament for all of you lovely Indian fans”. The players are in it for the money. Of course they are.

So naturely the organiztaion has to listen to wishes and demands made by the franchise owners. Some of them hopefully being quite experienced in marketing. This is perhaps new to a lot of government subsidized players, but this league has to earn its own money. If you have a sellable product, you earn money. If not then – zip.

That’s why I would have kept my criticism internally if I were Jwala and Ponnappa. In order to help this league find its feet. To let it grow. To let it learn from its startup errors. To develop itself. To benefit from from this league over the next couple of years. Especially if I was trusted with the honour of being selected Icon Player.

That doesn’t take away the lack of communication, or the sudden structure change or whatever we can come up with that could have been handled in a much better way. But if you want to be an Icon Player you keep your mouth shut, and help the league as well as you’re capable of.

If others choose to criticize thats their decision, but Icon Players are the face of the league and the teams, and you would expect them to be above comments like betrayal and discrimination.

Value for money

So lets take a look at the official argument for lowering their base prize.

The womens double were cut from the program, therefore their value was halved.

Well, that might be true, but only if you’re allowed to play two categories in each team match. I have not been able to secure information whether this actually is the case or not.  If not, this argument is not that strong then.

I think the real issue is that there is a very very big difference in the marketing and playing value of the six Icon Players. Thats evident. And as every team needs to have an Icon Player ( or do they ??), the two teams not winning any of the other four players, would be stuck with Jwala and Ponnappa at a too high prize, compared to their actual value.

That might sound harsh. It’s really not meant that way. It’s just that the two players would be part of a very limited market. Their playing abilities quite equal, so why get into a bidding war.

To resolve this problem the league should designate more Icon Players than teams. And the Icon Players base prize should be individually determined. The IP candidates that remains unsold then  goes back into the auction for regular players.

As of now it is my opinion that Jwala and Ponnappa actually helped raise the price for  P.V. Sindhu and P. Kashyap, as they would initially be more interesting for the teams, as they fill out a unit by themselves whereas Jwala and Ponnappa needed additional partners for the mixed category.

Auction surprises?

A number of international players remained unsold as well.

Noone can be surprised that players not able to commit themselves for the entire playing period remained unsold.

The cap of 275.000 US$ simply doesn’t leave room for such players. Also some of the international players might have overestimated their own value, resulting in demands for a too high base prize. Remeber the organizers were dying to have their names on the auction list, so there was probably little argueing about the base prize.

If i.e. the base prize of a player is questionably high, then I as a franchise manager don’t need to bid for that player, as there is a high probablity that noone else will either. If they do anyway, there is a good probability that they will spend too much money on this player, making it an unprofitable buy overall.

On the other hand if a player is prized too low, I definately must consider bidding in order to prevent other teams to get that player at a bargain.

That mechanism could lead to good players not being sold if the base prize is set too high, and other players getting quite a good prize because they were willing to risk a little value by setting their base prize at a low level from the beginning and thus creating a bidding war.

This also implies that the person in charge of each franchises bidding strategy must either be very knowledgeable or have very good advisors.

Icon Player properties

What then are the properties of an Icon Player? Well there might be many opininons on that, but here is five that I would value.

1)    Respectable by colleagues, media and fans

2)    Strong playing ability

3)    Teamleader

4)    High spirited

5)  Loyal

Auction troubles at Indian Badminton League

Maybe we had too high expectations. Maybe I had.

And there really wasn't anything leading up to the Indian Badminton League players auction, that would support this elevated level of expectations.

I somehow just  imagined that it would be better. More professional, better communication....more thoughts and strategy put into it. And maybe it was. If so I just don't get it, but of course that's my headache.

And like I mentioned, there wasn't much to support my expectations. On the contrary actually. The idea of the league surfaced in 2010 or 2011 I believe, and since then it has mostly been rumours. Nothing concrete of any kind but lots of rumours. And even more questions. Who runs the league? Who owns it. What is the format? What is the rules etc....
The Chinese would participate - yes but that would be retired players like Bao Chunlei and Zheng Bo. Everything seemed to be negotiable, and nowhere were reliable information or news to be found. Illustrated excellently when the Leagues homepage went down halfway through the auction.

I really hope this tournament eventually is succesfull, as I believe the world badminton community needs it to help drive the continous development of badminton. But I must say that I'm concerned. How is it going to go when 60 players and lots of officials are going to travel India for 17 days. We just have to keep our fingers crossed.

Strategy

Quite a lot of the franchises  seemed to be taken by surprise at the auction.
Maybe they weren't, but that's surely how it looked to me and the experience I've gained over the past years trying to put a team together on a budget in the Danish League.

 

To me it was impossible to find a red line in the way the franchises acquired players. There might have been one that passed me. That's very possible, I'm not that observant. But anyway there was a lot of bidding that puzzled me.

The way I see it, you could choose to go "the winning way" or the "star-commercial way". Some franchises might have chosen the latter without me being able to spot it. 

Of course one of the two most significant players were Lee Chong Wei, due to his level of play and his dominance over every other player but Lin Dan. The other player being Saina Nehwal, Queen of India and the biggest name in Indian Badminton.

However they probably both became too pricy if you wanted a winning team, as they ended up costing approximately one third of the cap available.

So in my opinion is wasn't a priority for "winning ways" to get one of these two players. On the other hand it would be essential for "star-commercial way".

There are a number of factors to consider putting a winning team together.

First of all it doesn't matter that "my" team cannot beat Chong Wei or Saina. They only count for one point, so the goal is to get three of the remaining four.

And that's important to be aware of - the team consists of five entities. Mens single one and two, Ladies single, Mens double and mixed double.
But the two doubles entities require four players whereas the three singles entities only reqiure three players. What I'm saying is that you have to figure out the price per entity instead of the price per player, and then compare it to expected winning percentages against the players the other franchises acquire.

In this situation I would put a lot of thought into whether it was possible to get a MS player that could win all his matches but against Chong Wei for a reasonable price. At first glance there is no such player available, so I wouldn't spend a lot on the MS1, and I consider P. Kashyap to be overpriced at 75.000 $.

Instead I would look for a very good MS2 and if possible a strong LS that would be able to win all matches except against Saina. Juliane Schenk would be excellent and she ended up 30.000$ cheaper than Saina. She even has a fair chance of beating Saina, and she's not playing the Worlds, so she'll be fresh and hungry coming in to the league.

Buying only one part of a double seems questionable as well.

Especially if that one is expensive. So buying only Carsten Mogensen without Mathias Boe seems foolish to me. Even Joachim Fischer, who is an outstanding team player, would no doubt benefit from playing with Christinna Pedersen instead of Ponnappa. 

The mixed category though, hasn't been given a lot of attention by the franchises and I feel points are up for grabs there.
Warriors - I can't believe they just changed their name - have a strong combination of Jongjit/Sapsiree. Sapsiree is an excellent buy at a bargain of only 15.000, as she can also substitue for P.V. Sindhu in case of injury. The same goes for her partner - if Bodin Issara hasn't hospitalized him - Maneepong Jongjit, who could also form a mens double with Markis Kidho.

I also like The Smashers selection of V. Diju to support Gutta Jwala, but they need to score at least 0.600 in winning percentage to justify the unit price of 61.000$

Another excellent buy is Vladimir Ivanov at 15.000$ as the versatile Russian can be fielded in all three categories.

Acquirings that mystifies me is Pradnya Gadre at a whopping 46.000$ - what has she produced that can justify that price? - and some expensive back-up players of 10.000 or more. After all you only need seven players in a team match, so don't overpay players that won't be able to make difference anyway.

 

Top 3 buys:

1) Maneepong Jongjit, Awadha Warriors, 10.000

2) Lim Kim Wah/ V Goh Shem, Hyderabad Hotshots, 20.000

3) Juliane Schenk, Pune Pistons, 90.000

 

Top 3 risky buys:

1) Pradnya Gadre, Hyderabad Hotshots, 46.000

2) Saina Nehwal, Hyderabad Hotshots, 120.000

3) Hu Yun, Banga Beats, 50.000