After all the bad press the IPL teams got last season, it's good to see two in the semis, and one eventually win, even at the expense of pushing aside the mighty Bushrangers. While that will put an end to the heckling of IPL teams in the Champions' League, and the IPL in general, for now, the problem still stays with all IPL teams- they need all four overseas professionals to survive- notably RCB, who needed Cameron White and Ross Taylor to compete. That's not encouraging, is it?
The encouraging thing, however, is the performance of the champions' Indian players. Vijay and Ashwin lead the honours with bat and ball, and should be T20I regulars. Raina and Dhoni are already established. In addition, we've seen good performances from Badrinath and Jakati (a far better all-rounder than captain's boy Jadeja, on all counts) across the series. Most important, however, is the performance of Balaji. He's no IPL find, but once an India regular, and this should be his comeback medium. He has it in him to represent India in T20Is, and being a seam-up bowler, he's a lot more relevant. A lof of India's top T20 bowlers are spinners, but with a pacer in the ranks, it's a good sign.
Looking at their strength and current track record, you can field the current Chennai Super Kings team as an Indian T20I team, by filling in the gaps once the overseas players leave. You can have Sehwag for Hayden, Gambhir for Hussey, Yusuf for Albie, Yuvraj or Rohit for Kemp, and collectively Irfan, RP Singh and Zaheer for Bollinger, Murali (big shoes, but still to fill) and Thushara, keeping the rest unchanged. Picking a starting XI won't be tough. Even the folks on the bench can contribute- they're all good fielders!
Outside of that, an option may be opened up with Vinay Kumar, and also Kohli, and add Tiwary from Mumbai Indians, but a lot of India's top T20I players were missing as their teams didn't make it.
