Having changed his loyalties from Kings XI and being given the reins of the more competent side, Yuvraj Singh would have thought that his luck will also change for the better. But at the half way stage of the IPL, his side Pune Warriors are looking completely out of sorts and are tottering at number nine in the league points table.
The team has won just two of the seven matches they played, thus accumulating only four points so far. And though a month of the tournament has already gone by, the new IPL entrant is far from finding the right combination when it comes to the team’s selection. They have already tried out 17 of the squad’s 19 players but are still unsure about the perfect eleven taking the field.
Right from the opening slot to the middle order and in the death overs, the team looks jittery and lacks precision. The team’s think tank started with maverick Jesse Ryder with Greame Smith at the top of the order, but the experiment was cut short by an injury to the former South African skipper.
Ryder being constant at his opening position, the changes were made to the other slot. Then came the turn of young Mohnish Mishra, who did a fair job at the lower middle order till he was asked to open the innings with the Kiwi batsman. But the ploy flopped instantly.
The baton was then passed to Australian wicketkeeper Tim Paine, who found it hard to grapple with the slow nature of the Indian wickets and failed to find any sort of touch.
The batting woes don’t finish here. The Warriors are in the midst of solving the middle order conundrum. After trying the experienced Mithun Manhas at the important No. 3 slot in the first four matches, the charge was given to young Manish Pandey in the next three. And though the former showed the glimpses of his capability time and again, the latter seemed to be completely out of touch from the beginning.
Pandey’s inability to carry on the momentum given by Ryder in the team’s last game against the RCB was one of the reasons Warriors couldn’t get off to a flying start they desperately needed while chasing down a big target.
The team’s strategy of sending the prolific pair of Robin Uthappa and skipper Yuvraj Singh very late in the innings also backfired as the two didn’t get enough time to play their strokes. And the team management’s decision seems even more surprising as the two batsmen are in the top three run getters for the side in the tournament, with Ryder being the third.
As far as their bowling is concerned, South African Alfonso Thomas is the torchbearer for the Warriors, picking up eight wickets in seven matches. And though he was well supported by left-arm spinner Rahul Sharma who contributed with six wickets in seven matches, the rest of the bowling expresses the same story as their batting.
Yuvraj’s inability to control his emotions in tight situations makes things even tougher for the whole side. Some of his on-field decisions — preferring Uthappa to Paine behind the wickets and persisting with Kamran Khan despite him being thrashed by the RCB batsmen in team’s last game — raise a question mark on his leadership skills.
It also shows that however prolific a batsman you may be, it doesn’t guarantee your success as a skipper. And though all is not lost for the Warriors, the mountain from here on will be extremely tough to climb.
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