RISING PUNE SUPERGIANTS: Ajinkya Rahane, Faf du Plessis, Kevin Pietersen, Steven Smith, MS Dhoni (c/wk), Mitchell Marsh, Irfan Pathan, R Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin, Ishwar Pandey, Ishant Sharma. “This was a different wicket as compared to the wickets we played on against the West Indies (in the World T20 semifinals on March 31) or even the One-Day International (5th and final in October) against South Africa”, the 27-year-old said.
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“If you look at last season when we were playing our best cricket, Malinga was bowling at his best, as well”.
He also said the absence of Sri Lankan pace spearhead Lasith Malinga, who is yet to join the team as he is recovering from a knee injury, was hurting the team a bit at the Wankhede. We have a lot to learn from this game.
Mumbai, thus, made another unpromising start to its campaign after having lost five and four games initially in the last two seasons respectively.
Supergiants handed an IPL debut to the legspinner M Ashwin, whom they signed for Rs. 4.5 crore at the player auction in February. I felt it was important to bowl well on this wicket. However, Mumbai side will be under pressure as they defending champions and would definitely like to start the tournament with a victory. “As a senior player they obviously ask me what I feel and I give my suggestion what combination should be”, he added. This was incidentally the fourth time that Ashwin had bowled just one over in an IPL game and hasn’t bowled at all in three of his 98 outings in the tournament.
Mitchell Marsh and Ishant Sharma picked up two wickets apiece, although the latter went for a few in the death, while the rest of the bowlers chipped in with a wicket each, to restrict Mumbai to a below-par total.
Dhoni, in fact, started answering questions at the promotional event with a preamble that if he is asked good questions on Sunday the number of questions he will be willing to answer to the media would go up next time and if not it will come down back to nil.
“So emotions set aside, as a professional, we had, or I had, to make sure that I am there how I was for CSK or for that matter for the Indian cricket team”. But it was Important to play close to the body because it was not easy to play hard shots.
“He will be missed, but we have to think about who the best replacement will be”.
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The debutants of this year’s IPL, the Pune SuperGiants, has a team which resembles the Chennai SuperKings of previous year’s IPL.
