Weary but win-hungry
Vaibhav Sharma
The IPL-fatigued Indian squad may not be in the best of form but is raring to go
MORE
than a month of T20
crickaet. The third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 3) has
been thrilling and provided the break India has started looking
forward to each year. But now, it is back to national duty for the
players at the ICC T20 World Cupthird edition in the Caribbean and
India are set to be among the frontrunners. There is a slight problem
though as, the optimism notwithstanding, all might not be well when it
comes to the fitness of the Indian squad.
Firstly, the IPL has
been non-stop cricket and was heavily taxing for the players. In what
can be called the first big casualty of the stressful IPL, Virender
Sehwag will be missing his second consecutive T20 World Cup. He will
sit out with a shoulder injury (he had suffered a similar shoulder
injury during IPL 2 and missed the previous World Cup in England).
The next big concern
is Yuvraj Singh. The maverick Punjab player has been struggling with
form and fitness alike. His wrist injury had kept him out of action at
the international scene in the past few months, and probably also
affected his batting during IPL 3. By his own admission, his fitness
will be a cause for concern to the entire team. "Last year was
really upsetting. And injuries have made it very frustrating in the
last five months. This is the time a batsman starts peaking but I am
not. I am working hard and, the moment I break my barrier, I will be
back. I returned from my wrist injury straight into the IPL where you
have to hit from the very first ball. It was hard on my wrist,"
Yuvraj was quoted as having said. "Currently, my body is on the
right track but I need to get a big score. I need to win to get back
into the groove," he added.
Second, there is the
case of captain M. S. Dhoni, who had missed a few matches due to
injury during the IPL. The Indian and Chennai Super Kings’ captain
had skipped almost 10 days of action during the league due to an
injury on the arm. Same was the case with Gautam Gambhir, who himself
had to sit out a few games due to a pulled hamstring. Even his Delhi
teammate Ashish Nehra regained fitness only around the fag end of the
IPL, playing just a handful of matches.
Along with Yuvraj,
Dhoni and Gambhir are the batting mainstay. A recurrence of their
injuries, keeping in mind the water-tight schedule, is possible, which
means that the fizz might be out before the Indians open up a real
challenge in the West Indies.
Then, there is the
obvious case of Zaheer Khan, too. Although the seamer has been bowling
well, he is known to be injury prone. He has also played all the
matches in the IPL, and with the Mumbai Indians getting an added run
till the final, the fatigue is bound to be more. The gap between the
IPL final and the T20 World Cup opener being just four days means that
the chances of getting a break do not exist. Along with the other
frequently injured Nehra, Zaheer will be spearheading the pace attack,
and an injury to either of them will leave India woefully short in the
bowling department.
Of course, there are
options in the form of debutant R. Vinay Kumar and Praveen Kumar, both
from Royal Challengers Bangalore (who themselves played the
semifinal), but among them if one might be short on experience, the
other one lacks the pace to head a fast-bowling attack.
But this does not mean
that the Indian prospects at the championship are bleak or have taken
a hit already. But the amount of expectations that this team has
generated over the past three years better be kept under a check. The
body needs a rest, so does the mind. They are remarkable
professionals, all right, but muscle wear can turn a star into a
benchwarmer in a matter of one simple movement.
While Sehwag has been
replaced by Chennai Super Kings’ Murali Vijay, any further changes
to the squad will mean that naming a squad so early turns out to be an
extremely futile exercise. The Indians are going into the World Cup at
the back of not just a hectic IPL time, but also some very busy
international fixtures. Let’s hope that the late-night parties that
often continued till the wee hours, don’t ultimately turn out to be
the party-poopers.
Tame
Twenty
Abhijit Chatterjee
Can Dhoni’s boys replicate the success story of IPL 3 in
the T20 World Cup? A look at Team India’s prospects
EVeN
if Sir Garry Sobers is of the view that India, together
with Australia, are the favourites in the upcoming ICC T20 World
Cup in the West Indies, it is quite likely that the Indian squad
would be suffering from fatigue after the non-stop matches of
IPL 3, where the players not only played in energy-sapping heat
but also crissed-crossed the country time and again.
The West Indian
cricket legend is not wrong in one way. All Indian players have
been playing T20 cricket for the past month and a half in IPL 3
and, therefore, all of them should be totally match-fit. But he
probably does not know that the players have not only been
playing cricket but also been partying late into the night, day
after day, and that is no way to prepare for a world
championship. The IPL organisers probably have done immense harm
to India’s cause since they very conveniently forgot that
India have a long and hard grind in international cricket in the
months ahead and the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup is only the
first of them.
Trivia
n India’s
highest score in a T20 World Cup match is against England
– 218/4
n Yuvraj
Singh became the first player in T20 to hit six 6s in an
over. This was against England in T20 World Cup 2007 and
the unfortunate bowler was Stuart Broad
n Yuvraj
Singh has scored the fastest fifty (in 12 balls) in T20
World Cup. This was against England
n Chris
Gayle, West Indies (117 runs) is the only person to score
a century in a T20 World Cup match.
n Craig
McMillan of New Zealand scored the maximum number of sixes
(13 sixes) in the 2007 T20 cup. Yuvraj Singh was
second with 12 sixes
n The
highest team total in T20 World Cup is 260/6 by Sri Lanka
against Kenya
n Mathew
Hayden of Australia is the highest run-getter in T20 World
Cup series (265 runs)
n Umar Gul of
Pakistan took the most number of wickets (13 wickets at an
avg of 11.92) in the series
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Already the IPL 3
has claimed its first victim, with vice-captain Virender Sehwag
ruled out from the World Cup after he suffered a shoulder injury
while playing for Delhi Daredevils in the IPL. His place in the
Indian squad has gone to Tamil Nadu opener Murali Vijay. A
similar injury to Sehwag in the last IPL played in South Africa
had hurt India's campaign in the previous edition of the event
in England last year. The opener subsequently underwent a
shoulder surgery.
Although Sehwag
topped the list of run-scorers for Delhi Daredevils in the IPL
— the dashing opener made 346 runs at 25.42 (strike-rate
163.30) from 14 games — his form had been indifferent by his
own lofty standards. Sehwag’s replacement 26-year-old Murali
Vijay has surprised many with his clean and uncomplicated
hitting for Chennai Super Kings. Under the leadership of India
captain Mahender Singh Dhoni, who is also the skipper of the
Chennai-based team, Vijay has notched up more than 400 runs this
IPL season, including a century.
There is only one
new face in the Indian squad of 15 for the West Indies
tournament, that of Karnataka fast bowler R. Vinay Kumar
although questions might well be raised about the form and
fitness of quite a few players.
The 26-year-old
Vinay Kumar, who has been impressive in IPL 3, has forced his
way into the team on the back of his consistent performance in
domestic cricket, claiming 46 wickets in the Ranji Trophy. He
has so far captured 202 wickets in 54 first class matches with
eight for 32 his best figures.
Vinay can well
fulfill the role of the all-rounder the team is looking for so
desperately, since he can bat fairly well at the lower order.
But if the
inclusion of Vinay Kumar has been well taken, the same cannot be
said of the second spin bowler in the squad, Piyush Chawla, who
has got the nod ahead of players like Pragyan Ojha and Amit
Mishra.
Piyush Chawla, the
Kings XI Punjab legspinner who has made a comeback into the
Indian team after a gap of nearly a year and a half, has done
fairly well in IPL 3, where he picked 12 wickets in Punjab's 14
league games.
It is not only in
the selection of the second spinner (of course, there is no
issue with the selection of Punjab’s Harbhajan Singh, who has
had a wonderful IPL 3 season with Mumbai Indians) that there is
controversy.
There is equal
controversy about the inclusion of certain batsmen in the squad.
True, players like Sachin Tendulkar have voluntarily opted out
of the Indian Twenty20 squad right from the first World Twenty20
Championship, but the fact remains that the exclusion of a
batsman like Delhi’s Virat Kohli has left a bad taste in the
mouth. Virat has scripted a wonderful run in IPL 3, which in
normal circumstances should have caught the eyes of the national
selectors. In contrast to this, the form of Yuvraj Singh is
definitely a cause of concern even if the left-hander is among
the highest scorers of King’s XI Punjab, who finished last in
IPL 3.
Another big
question mark arises over the inclusion of all-rounder Ravindra
Jadeja in the squad. Jadeja, who last season had played for
Rajasthan Royals, was barred from playing in this season’s IPL
because of a contractual dispute and will obviously be very
rusty when the Indian squad plays at the West Indies tournament.
But more than form, the biggest worry for the Indians, winners
of the inaugural tournament in 2007 in South Africa, could well
be the nagging injuries many players will be carrying from the
IPL. Delhi’s Asish Nehra as also Gautam Ghambir are still not
fully fit while skipper Dhoni suffered an injury during the IPL
and had to miss a few matches.
The Australians,
tipped by many to be the most formidable squad this year have
prepared very well for the championship. They left for the West
Indies with a lot of time on hand after attending a training
camp at Brisbane and plan to play two warm-up games before
taking on Pakistan, the defending champions but probably the
rustiest squad in the championship after their long hiatus from
international cricket, in their first league match.
England coach Andy
Flower believes the IPL experience of his top-order batsmen will
serve them well. Five members of the squad — Kevin Pietersen,
Paul Collingwood, Eoin Morgan, Michael Lumb and Ravi Bopara —
have been plying their trade in India with mixed results ahead
of England's attempt to finally win a global one-day tournament.
Pietersen, despite being dropped for a period by Bangalore Royal
Challengers, has been in impressive form, while Collingwood has
continued his productive year, but Flower thinks the main
beneficiary of the IPL will be Lumb, who could make his
international debut when England play West Indies on May 3. He
is the one uncapped player in the 15-man squad and is being
earmarked to open the batting alongside Craig Kieswetter, who
made his debut in the one-day series against Bangladesh.
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