Opinion It’s baffling that Pune went in for Ganguly so late

In their game against the Mumbai Indians,they had a very good top seven in Jesse Ryder,Graeme Smith,Robin Uthappa,Yuvraj Singh,Manish Pandey,Mithun Manhas and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala. And their bowling,with the consistent Alfonso Thomas,Jerome Taylor,Yuvraj Singh and two very impressive young Indian players Shrikant Wagh and Rahul Sharma was better than many in the tournament. Indeed,I will be very surprised if both Wagh and Sharma aren’t on the selectors’ radar already. Yet,they came apart,they didn’t look like they were competing. There was no joie de vivre,it didn’t seem like playing for the Pune Warriors was the only thing they ever wanted to do. They had the players to go far but I’m not sure they had the team.

And much as I am a fan of Sourav Ganguly it baffled me that they went in for him so late in the tournament. When you pick a player of the stature of Ganguly you have to play him; if you wait for him to get into rhythm there may not be enough time left. Or then,you pick him to increase your fan base,give the team and the supporters something to cheer about. Instead,Ganguly hit a few balls and sat by himself in the players dug out for a while. Now,it is too late for him to make an impact though Pune Warriors could aspire to be the team that others don’t want to play for fear of an upset.

Refreshingly positive

The Rajasthan Royals on the other hand,beset with problems before the tournament began,have been refreshingly positive and no team has made more out of the available resources than they have. They had two match winners in the squad in Ross Taylor and Shane Watson,two senior legends in support in Rahul Dravid and Shane Warne and an astoundingly expensive Johan Botha. The rest were youngsters with promise,some pedigree but largely unproven at a level above which they were currently playing.

But Warne has managed to make Ashok Menaria,Amit Singh and Sidharth Trivedi into decent performers,even the stylish Ajinkya Rahane played a role in one of the games; he used either Dishant Yagnik or Amit Paunikar to keep wickets and made Botha into a top order batsman. Here is a side where everyone needs to play to his best if they have a chance of winning. But win they do,certainly more often than anyone expected them to and once again they have enriched the IPL.

While the players often rise to the occasion,a major part of the credit must go to an extraordinary man who fills a side with self-belief. There is no more fascinating character in the IPL than Shane Warne; the mind is still ticking and competitive,most days the fingers wrap themselves around the ball as they are intended to and there isn’t a moment when he lets the game drift. He is like the head of a guerrilla organisation that constantly surprises the larger armies with skill and cunning. I must confess I feared for him in this year’s IPL. I didn’t want to see him being hit around the park,you don’t want to see legends reduced to that. Instead he is high on the wicket taker’s list,has impressed Rahul Dravid by the fields he sets and the thought he still puts in and there is a chance that the Royals will be in the top four.

The factor beyond the names on a team sheet is the next stage for the franchise owners in their understanding of the IPL.