With the 10th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) now well underway, Dileep Premachandran looks through some of the talking points and things to look out for in the coming week.
Supergiant blunder
What don’t you do if you’re the brother of a franchise owner whose team is not even likely to be part of the next IPL? Well, for a start, you should not be insulting one of Indian cricket’s biggest names, the player whose exploits were central to the league becoming such a big part of the Indian summer.
Rising Pune Supergiant removed MS Dhoni as captain in the weeks leading up to the tournament. Dhoni had never bothered to hide his loyalty to the suspended Chennai Super Kings, and his leadership of Pune last season was well beyond the standards he had set in the yellow of the two-time champions.
With Steve Smith as captain, Pune won their first game of the season, against Mumbai Indians, but most of the post-match attention went to Harsh Goenka, brother of Sanjiv, the owner, who had tweeted: “#RPSvMI Smith proves who’s the king of the jungle. Overshadows Dhoni totally. Captains innings [sic]. Great move to appoint him as captain.”
By the time he deleted it, thousands had the screen shot, and there was rage in cyberspace. The chances of Dhoni heading back to Chennai in 2018 also got a lot stronger.
Delhi’s pace aces
Zaheer Khan (pictured), though he may be well past his best, is the Daredevils’ captain. Mohammed Shami, now back to full fitness, is India’s most skilled pace bowler. The squad also included Australia’s incredibly talented Pat Cummins, the all-round pace-bowling excellence of Chris Morris and Kagiso Rabada, the heir to the South African pace legacy. With IPL pitches not exactly famed for being bowler-friendly, it will be interesting to see how Delhi rotate that quintet. Seeing four of them in unison in at least one game would be a sight.
The De Villiers return
Royal Challengers Bangalore looked a far less intimidating prospect with neither Virat Kohli (injured shoulder) nor AB de Villiers (back strain) in the ranks. De Villiers (pictured) launched a fan-engagement app earlier in the week, but for Bangalore supporters, it is those classical and improvised fours and sixes that are the need of the hour. They should see them in the coming week.
The airplane celebration
Imran Tahir turned 38 on March 27, but players two decades his junior would do well to learn from his approach to the game. His boundless enthusiasm is allied with tremendous skill, and he already has five wickets from two games – each celebrated with that arms-outstretched sprint into the outfield. The scouts whose advice saw him go unsold in the auction – Pune picked him up later – are the only ones not smiling.
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