With so many teams it can be hard to compare individual draft picks in a round, so I thought I'd try and combine the doubles after each round has reversed to get a better sense of how everyone was going. Thanks to Baxter for actually getting the pairs together in a file so I didn't have to do it myself. I'll post each set of two rounds in its own post.
Round 1/2 Code: Alex Ravi Ashwin Tim Southee Athlai Mitchell Starc Angelo Mathews Baxter James Anderson Nathan Lyon Benny David Warner James Pattinson Boob Ben Stokes Jofra Archer Cab96 Jasprit Bumrah Dean Elgar Captain Virat Kohli Umesh Yadav Chewie Mohammad Shami Che Pujara dhok Yasir Shah Kumar Sangakkara GAS Kane Williamson Lungi Ngidi Gazza Joe Root Chris Woakes H&D Trent Boult AB de Villiers HDS Steve Smith Bhuv Kumar Hunter Jason Holder Ishant Sharma jimmy Mohammad Abbas BJ Watling Julian Colin de Grandhomme Stuart Broad MG Pat Cummins Aiden Markram morgieb Ravindra Jadeja Tom Latham N11 Josh Hazlewood Ajinkya Rahane Phlegm Neil Wagner Henry Nicholls Prez Shakib Al Hasan Quinton de Kock Skippos Marnus Labuschagne Kemar Roach spark Vernon Philander Ross Taylor Stephen Kagiso Rabada Rohit Sharma Best 3: Heath (Smith and Bhuvi): The Smith pick didn't exactly require a lot of genius but it certainly gives him a leg up, and I think Bhuvi was a really good pick to compliment him -- when you have the best bat, getting an quality opening bowler who can bat is a great move IMO, and looking at the Round 3/4 picks there wasn't a better one available when he made the pick. Gazza (Root and Woakes): Yeah I like me the gun bat and fast bowling allrounder combination to start the draft. Root not as good as Smith but Woakes a similar bowler and much better batsman than Bhuvi. Similarly solid start to Heath. Morgie (Jadeja and Latham): Jadeja would arguably be the best player in the world in such a diluted standard, so it's hard to look past any team with him. Latham's a step below the best bats but quality openers are rare, especially with Warner already picked him up before him. Dark horse: StephenZA (Rabada and Rohit): In a way meat and potatoes picking up the best specialist he could in each round, but Rohit is a bit of a wildcard in general - gun domestic performances, ATG ODI stats, amazing recent Test form but a patchy Test career and a horrible away record could see him land anywhere between the top five bats and somewhere much more middling in a comp this size. If he can bully the lesser bowlers in each attack this is an amazing start for Stephen. Worst pair: Dhokchau/ElvisSpike (Yasir and Sanga): Bots gonna bot. The Yasir pick was suboptimal but more or less fine, but the Sanga pick was a couple of rounds early at best.
Round 3/4 Code: Alex Alastair Cook Karun Nair Athlai Mushfiqur Rahim Murali Vijay Baxter Ollie Pope Prithvi Shaw Benny Rishabh Pant Beuran Hendricks Boob Mohammad Amir Usman Khawaja Cab96 Duanne Olivier Moeen Ali Captain Kyle Abbott Hashim Amla Chewie Dale Steyn Fawad Alam dhok Steve O'keefe Shannon Gabriel GAS Travis Head Kurtis Patterson Gazza Jos Buttler Lokesh Rahul H&D Keshav Maharaj Tamim Iqbal HDS Peter Siddle Abid Ali Hunter Dimuth Karunaratne Devon Conway jimmy Dinesh Chandimal Sam Curran Julian Mayank Agarwal Jonny Bairstow MG Joe Burns Jhye Richardson morgieb Babar Azam Shaheen Afridi N11 Azhar Ali Simon Harmer Phlegm Morne Morkel Jackson Bird Prez Faf du Plessis Rassie van der Dussen Skippos Rashid Khan Asad Shafiq spark Hanuma Vihari Kuldeep Yadav Stephen Zubayr Hamza Anrich Nortje Best 3: Baxter (Pope and Shaw): Picks so cheeky good he actually made me think his Round 1 and 2 were better as well. I was slightly concerned about his tactic of going for two specialist bowlers up front, given I knew he'd miss out on the star Test bats and allrounders, but he snuck in two young batsmen with recent FC records that absolutely scream "yeah I might average 50 in the 24 team comp if things work out for me". Canny recruits after the Test stars ran dryish. Morgie (Babar and Shaheen): Probably the best batsman and best bowler available at the time of each of his picks, and then they went and did well in a Test after he picked them to rub it in. I'm looking forward to finding out exactly how he will manage to collect the wooden spoon after this start. Chewie (Steyn and Fawad): Classic Chewie solid picks for what's looking like a classic Chewie solid team. He built his CWPL premiership on having everyong contribute, going for proven quality at the level he was playing and avoiding risky picks, and he's started the same way here. Steyn has injury worries but the standard of his bowling is still well worth a Round 3 selection and Fawad loves nothing more than soullessly accumulating runs against not-quite-Test-standard attacks. Dark horse: Hunter (Karunaratne and Conway): Conway is stupid. Worst: Phlegm (Morkel and Bird): Actually perfectly good picks on the face of it but Phlegm gets this award automatically for picking what will apparently be his 12th man in Round 4.
Someone should hit Phlegm up for a batsman<-->Bird trade IMO. Maybe Prez; IIRC he didn't pick many quicks early at all.
i doubt i will be trading, especially given bird is awesome squad depth and long term injuries are a thing. it would have to be some batsman.
Round 5/6 Code: Alex Matthew Wade Wayne Parnell Athlai Lockie Ferguson Rangana Herath Baxter Wiaan Mulder Lewis Gregory Benny Shaun Marsh Janneman Malan Boobidy Michael Neser Will Pucovski Cab96 Shikhar Dhawan Matt Henry Captain Jack Leach Roston Chase Chewie Haris Sohail Will Somerville Dhok Shan Masood Marcus Harris GAS Trent Copeland Darren Bravo Gazza Jeetan Patel Hardik Pandya H&D Chris Morris Chris Tremain HDS Shai Hope Hasan Ali Hunter Dom Sibley Tim Murtagh jimmy Rory Burns Taijul Islam Julian Dilruwan Perera Gary Ballance MG Mominul Haque Mitchell Marsh morgieb Suranga Lakmal Shubman Gill N11 Niroshan Dickwella Dwaine Pretorius Phlegm Kusal Mendis Will Young Prez Daryn Dupavillon Craig Overton Skippos Dhananjaya de Silva Oshada Fernando spark Mohammed Siraj Priyank Panchal Stephen Shyreyas Iyer Mustafizur Rahman Best 3: Boobidy (Neser/Pucovski): I thought Gemmell might've run out of players he'd heard of by now, but the fact that he wasn't distracted by the noise of stats diving other comps and genuinely follows the Shield actually really paid off for him here. These two blokes have been great in a strong domestic competition the past few seasons and should more than hold their own in this competition. Morgie (Lakmal/Gill): WAC. Howedan (Morris/Tremain): Really "lighting up trees" to borrow a morgieism in strong fast bowling domestic competitions of late, and Morris is a potential #7 as well. Dark horse: Dhok (Masood/Harris): The start of his relentless selection of opening batsmen for some reason, but these first two could be a great pair. Good stuff. Honourable mention: Gazza (Jeets/Pandya): Sniping Jeets was a great CPL moment. Hopefully he takes 10 against Athlai's team. Worst: Prez (Dupavillon/Overton): Even if Dupavillon guns it he definitely could've left the pick until later. Not picking a quick in the first four rounds and then going a risk/favourite in Round 5 is ... bold, to put it kindly. Overton was a fine pick but I think Morgie was a little too excited about it in his review and it doesn't counteract the weirdest of the Dupa one.
Round 7/8 Code: GAS Eddie Moore Nikita Miller Benny Dane Piedt Chadd Sayers Boobidy Nick Maddinson Callum Ferguson Hunter Joe Denly Harry Conway jimmy Kraigg Brathwaite Theunis de Bruyn Alex Peter Handscomb Kedar Jadhav Skippos Ryan Higgins Wriddhiman Saha Cab96 Alex Carey Manish Pandey spark Cameron Green Abhimanyu Easwaran Athlai Hamish Bennett Martin Guptill Captain Kaushal Silva Keegan Petersen Phlegm Doug Bracewell Ajaz Patel Chewie Glenn Phillips Tom Blundell morgieb Darren Stevens Pathum Nissanka Julian Mark Wood Glenn Maxwell H&D Dane Vilas Nick Larkin N11 Mahmudullah Riyad Kusal Perera MG Kyle Verreynne Wasim Jaffer Dhok Abhinav Mukund Jake Weatherald Gazza Ollie Robinson Cam Bancroft HDS Ravi Bopara Dominic Bess Stephen Rudi Second George Linde Prez Dane Paterson Pieter Malan Baxter Pite van Biljon Mark Steketee Best 3: Number 11 (Mahmudullah/Kusal): Sneakily picked two pretty decent Test batsman (both of whom have another string to their bow) while others were trying to stats dive domestic cricket. In a round of moonshots for domestic h4x, N11 played it a bit safer knowing he was getting solid Test cricketers and I think it'll pay off. Athlai (Bennett/Guptill): The first real dive into the Plunket Shield, with a bit of ODIh4x thrown in for good measure in Guptill's case. Guptill loves bullying medicore bowling and Bennett has been a standout in the PS since returning from injury a couple of seasons back. Chewie (Phillips/Blundell): Yeah I think going NZ domestic cricket was a good call in this cycle, and Blundell certainly didn't harm the quality of the pick by scoring a Test ton on the day of. Dark horse: Howedan (Vilas/Larkin): Larkin is stupid. Worst: Dhok (Mukund/Weatherald): Morgie bagged the Mukund pick on account of Dhok having picked three consecutive openers, but I thought it could work well enough with Masood at 3 and Sanga at 4. But then he quadrupled down on that by picking a fourth of very dubious quality. I'm not really sure why.
He didn't want to bully Dhok off the forum by talking about how shite his picks have been 4 rounds in a row.
