New Delhi: There will be two new babies delivered by the Indian Premier League's fourth season and one of those will be the Sahara Pune Warriors, the second team from the state of Maharashtra, owned by Subrata Roy-led Sahara India Parivar.
Sahara has been associated with Indian sports, chiefly cricket, for a long time; therefore, their advent into this arena was no surprise. Rather, being one of India's top corporate houses, it was almost imminent.
After the players' auction Abhijit Sarkar, Director of Sahara India Pariwar, said, "Sahara's Pune Warriors squad has been constituted with an intention to strike a balance between experience, exuberance, international expertise and promising talent of present and future.
"Keeping in mind the Twenty20 format of the game, we are looking to play aggressive and entertaining cricket and are confident to make a permanent mark on the league”.
And if you thought the quoted words were overstated emotions or farfetched dreams, check out the names of their Warriors.
Led by a flamboyant match-winner Yuvraj Singh, this team includes players like Graeme Smith, Jesse Ryder, Callum Fergusson, Robin Uthappa, Murali Kartik, Wayne Parnell.
It is actually a balanced side, despite Angelo Mathews' blow, who has been ruled out due to a side strain.
Pune's batting will be mastered by their leader Yuvraj, who is fresh from his 'Man of the Tournament' performance in the World Cup. The southpaw happens to be a potent force in any form of the game and can murder opponents with his blade. And his left-armers can do the damage if taken lightly, as it happened in the World Cup.
Although Yuvraj's IPL captaincy stint with Kings XI Punjab has not been well-received, he has been toast of India in the last couple of months and might just do the trick for Pune.
On the other hand, free from the Protean captaincy burden, Graeme Smith must be a relaxed and liberated soul.
Smith's stint with Rajasthan royals had shown trailers of genius and if he plays to his potential this season, he can be lethal at the top of the order.
Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey have performed exceedingly well in the T20 version of the game; so much so that their non-inclusion in the national team still remains a mystery unsolved. This year, it would be another opportunity for these batsmen to prove their mettle and get draped in national colours.
Callum Fergusson, Mitchell Marsh and Tim Paine are tipped to be the future of Australian team and if reinvetion is what the Aussies are looking for, then IPL might well be the platform for these talented players.
Pune's bowling has the spark of South African prodigy Wayne Parnell who is also no muck with the bat. He will be ably supported by the spin assistants Murli Kartik and Nathan McCullum, pacer Jerome Taylor and a pool of promising players like Kamran Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, etc.
Though Pune would be making their debut in the IPL, they have the pedigree to surprise the best and force a photo-finish.
Squad:
Yuvraj Singh (c), Robin Uthappa, Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Bhuvenshwar Kumar, Dheeraj Jadhav, Ekalavya Dwivedi, Ganesh Gaikwad, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Harshad Khadiwale, Kamran Khan, Manish Pandey, Mithun Manhas, Mohnish MIshra, Rahul Sharma, Sachin Rana, Shrikant Wagh, Shrikant Mundhe, Imtiyaz Ahmed, (Foreign) Graeme Smith, Tim Paine, Angelo Mathews, Nathan McCullum, Callum Ferguson, Wayne Parnell, Mitchell Marsh, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas, Jesse Ryder
No comments:
Post a Comment