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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

MI think tank - no place for Glenn Maxwell... Rishi Dhawan - who ?


IPL floods you with matches ~ players, possibilities and more.. everyday you see a new player ~ so far unheard of : Jasbirsingh Bumrah, Hanu Vihari, Rahul Shukla ………. today it is Kedar Jadhav and Rishi Dhawan

In Test or ODI, the opportunities are more or less equal……….. IPL promises to be different – much of the match is played even before the toss… before we proceed do you know in what capacity Jeremy Snape is associated with Delhi Daredevils and why is this woman on the field – the others in the picture are : Danny Morrison, Virat Kohli, Kumara Sangakkara and David Boon…

photo courtesy : iplt20.com [www.sportzpics.co.za/images]

Today in the 2nd match MI Captain  Ricky Ponting won the toss and decided to bat; before we go to the match details, the Q is are the team managing the affairs well.  As I said, now you have the analysis of the pitch, the opponent; their strength, their players and you have besides the impressive array of local and foreign players – a big team of support staff, who possess the business acumen to decide what is good for the team. 

The owners Reliance [Nita Ambani] has recruited : John Wright as Head coach, Robin Singh, Coach; Anil Kumble – mentor; Shaun Pollock – bowling coach; Paras Mhambrey – Asst coach, Jonty Rhodes – fielding coach; Matt Dwyer – Strength and conditioning coach; Robert Gibson and Nitin Patel – Physios; Donald Shugg – Masseur; Dhananjai CKM – video analyst. 

With all they picked up the cleanest hitter Kieron Pollard and gave him 2 balls to play against RCB.  Today, Rishi Dhawan  replaced  Dwayne Smith.  Don’t call it ridiculous……….. It has to do with 4 player rule.. you can have only 4 Overseas player in the playing XI – so drop Munaf Patel for Malinga; so another foreigner has to necessarily sit out – so Dwayne Smith out………..  First the veterans Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar opening in a T20 format makes you uncomfortable… today Dinesh Karthick and later Rohit Sharma; a cameo from Ambati Rayudu ensured that MI became the first team to cross 200 in this version.  But earlier, Ponting was lame duck in the first over out for a duck and 3 balls later, Tendulkar drover to mid off, set off for a non-existent run and was run out by miles……….

MI shelled out million dollar to buy Glenn Maxwell, who is yet to be part of the proceedings ~ he is cooling – but will he ever get a game.. is he not good enough and not among the top 5 or 6 foreigners – then why was he bought at such a high price……….. Ricky Ponting is the Captain and unlikely to be dropped; Pollard is the best striker and cannot be thought of kept out of any game; then Malinga, the best bowler and to some extent Mitchell Johnson. 

Other foreign players include :  Blizzard, Philip Hughes, James Franklin, Jacob Oram, Dwayne Smith, Nathan Coulter-Nile – so where does Glenn Maxwell fit in and why open with Sachin and Ponting ?

DD is plagued by injuries – Sehwag is yet to play, KP is yet to.. they have Thirumalai Ananthanpillai Sekhar as Mentor; Eric Simons – Coach, Trent Woodhill, Ashish Kapoor; Kirk Russel – Physio; Sandeep Raj and S Rajnikant – trainer…. Jeremy Snape – mental conditioning and performance coach !!!!    

Chasing a hard target of 210, Delhi suffered a shock… the young aspirant, who captained the winning U19 team in WC – Unmukt Chand was out for another golden duck – match 1 – he got out to Brett Lee; today MI opened with 32 year old Harbhajan who got him out first ball.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
9th April 2013 @ 10 pm.

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