ICC Dream 11 Classic mode round 3: Tips and tricks

By now you will have got the hang of the format of ICC Dream 11 and the challenges that come with it. But there is no room for complacency in a season-long contest. To stay on top, you have to think on your feet and the challenge is heightened as you can now make just five trades.

This means you need to stick to six players from your team from the second round. You can still trade more players, however, it comes at a price of 10 points per transfer.

A few things to bear in mind when picking the team for round three:

• Each team plays only once in this round so pick a good blend of players bearing in mind the strength of opposition teams.
• New Zealand take on Afghanistan in what could be a slightly lop-sided contest, particularly the Black Caps bowlers against Afghanistan batsmen.
• Another factor to consider is that you have only five trades for the next round too and two teams – South Africa and New Zealand – don't play at all. So you need to ensure you don't splurge on players from these sides.
• Likewise, Sri Lanka and Australia play two matches each in round four but that does not mean you need to stock up now itself since you can always bring in players at the end of this round.

Based on this analysis, our best team is:

We have made only three trades to the existing team from round two. Remember that though you have five available trades, you don't need to compulsorily make changes.

****Here are the swaps we made.

• Shami out for de Kock: While Shami was expected to start for India, he didn't, which forced us to swap him out. De Kock is a good option to have against the West Indian bowlers who tend to pitch the ball short early on. De Kock loves that kind of length and can be a pretty good addition.
• Moeen Ali out for Phehlukwayo: Phehlukwayo has been among the wickets and even got Kohli. Given his ability to change his pace in the death overs and produce cutters, he could be handy against West Indies' big hitters.****

• Rashid Khan out for Oshane Thomas: Thomas has been a handful on bouncy wickets and we have him in the side to complement Russell against a South African side that appears weak on the batting front.