Mumbai, Hyderabad stake serious claims

Teams reliant on their Australian, English and West Indian stars could struggle, writes Ravi Shastri

IN FOCUS: South Africans like Dale Steyn of Royal Challengers Bangalore will give their teams a distinct advantage.

Early impressions but a few pointers are unmistakable. Those teams reliant on their Australian, English and West Indian stars could struggle. Soon these men would be part of English summer cricket.

One of course is not discounting the retired superstars such as Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden or young dynamos much in talk such as David Warner and Tyron Henderson; yet the principle more or less holds.

Overseas presence would be reduced to members from Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand. Of New Zealand, there are but only five in the fray and two of them, Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder, are with Bangalore.

South African advantage

That leaves us with men from Sri Lanka and South Africa of whom there are aplenty. When the fresh signings were done in Goa, nobody knew the IPL could be relocated to South Africa. Now that it has, teams with good South African cricketers would have an advantage.

Indian batting stars of course would be no less critical. All those in the Test teams, the Dravids and Laxmans, Gambhirs and Sehwags, Sachins and Yuvrajs, and those in the shorter format, such as Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma, would have to pull their weight in gold.

Mumbai Indians would have a quiet smile on their face as not only do they have India’s two best bowlers, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh, they also have the best of Sri Lankans and South Africans — Sanath Jayasuriya and Lasith Malinga and Jean-Paul Duminy — to boot.

And then there is Sachin Tendulkar! It’s also interesting that Tendulkar is crediting two of his support staffers, Shaun Pollock and Jonty Rhodes, for their invaluable inputs.

Promising youngsters

Much will be called upon from the promising youngsters of first edition. Abhishek Nayar, Swapnil Asnodkar, Ravinder Jadeja, Yusuf Pathan, Virat Kohli and Karan Goel would have to live up to their promise.

It wouldn’t be easy for the conditions here are vastly different from back home, more so now when the winter is settling in.

I could be wrong, and for the sake of IPL-2 I hope I am, but Kolkata, Jaipur and to a lesser extent Bangalore would have to pull their socks up early.

Chennai and Delhi are promising. The laggards of the first edition, Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers Hyderabad stake serious claims. Kings Eleven Punjab has bowling woes.

Bowlers, both pacers and spinners, are in a level-playing field. Teams with serious balance will be the movers and shakers of this tournament.