With Stars Missing, Isn't Indian Premier League Missing the Zing?
Kevin Pietersen, Mitchell Starc, Shane Watson, Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Shami are just some of the stars that have been amiss at the Indian Premier League so far and that's probably what has taken the sheen off. However, once the stars recover from whatever scars they've got, the business end of the 8th IPL promises to be a cacophony of the 'problem of plenty' for the teams.
It all started with the switch-hit man. Kevin Pietersen literally hit his side Sunrisers Hyderabad for a switch-hit. Hyderabad needed a star batsman to back David Warner and they went ahead and invested 2 crore on Pietersen. It was a steal. It was at base price. But the strategy was to build a team around him, at least to an extent. However it didn't happen. Pietersen pulled out just 2 weeks before the IPL, Pietersen pulled out to concentrate on making an England come back.(IPL 2015: Full Coverage)
Hyderabad then made the bold decision to drop Dale Steyn and pick World Cup finalist and in form Trent Boult instead. Not just that. They even dropped Ishant Sharma for Praveen Kumar. Imagine Ishant talking about the heartbreak of not making the World Cup squad and then shortly after he was dropped by a domestic T20 side for an out of favour India has been Praveen Kumar. With reason considering Lambu had horrible figures of 0/46 in his opening IPL game this season.
So currently, the familiar faces of Pietersen, Steyn and Ishant are not being seen in the IPL.
The other team that has a problem of plenty is Delhi Daredevils. They picked too many pace bowlers and now don't know what to do with them. In their first match Angelo Mathews was missing because Sri Lankan players were banned from playing in Tamil Nadu (The match was in Chennai). Thankfully the Sri Lankan Captain returned. But with that Albie Morkel, the man who almost helped a new look Delhi beat the usually unbeatable Chennai Super Kings with an unbelievable 73 off 55, had to miss out.
Sunil Gavaskar told NDTV right at the start of the IPL that Delhi have made a mistake by dropping Zaheer Khan. As it turned out reports suggested Zaheer Khan may not be fully fit. On top of all of that Mohammed Shami was ruled out of the IPL with an injury. Delhi's Indo-Australian import in Gurinder Sandhu has also been warming the bench. So all in all Delhi has 3 pacers who should probably find a place in the playing XI, simply warming the bench. All in all Albie Morkel, Zaheer Khan, Mohd. Shami and Gurinder Sandhu are missing out on the action. Surely playing these stars will add a bit of zing to the billion dollar league.
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That's not all. The Man of the Tournament at the World Cup, Mitchell Starc is not playing the IPL. He may be available to play very soon, but for the moment he is injured. No wonder, Royal Challengers Bangalore is looking anything but Royal in the bowling department.
Last but certainly not the least is Shane Watson. The official Captain of the Rajasthan Royals is yet to play a game this season. And to think the Royals have already won 4 out of 4 games and are sitting pretty on top of the points table. Watson is supposedly suffering from a hip injury but it wouldn't come as a surprise if that wasn't the case. Imagine if he too has been dropped for Steven Smith like Steyn has been dropped at Hyderabad for Boult?