IPL Teams: Pune Warriors

IPL season 6 is half way through. All the team have played around 8 matches by now. This year I tried following some of the matches. I viewed one or the other match of every team. Since for the first time I closely followed IPL matches, all different teams made a kind of impression on me. Nothing serious  about it, but I unknowingly tried to weigh different teams and made some conclusions. Through my posts I will share these impressions of different teams one by one. 

Since I come from Pune, obviously Pune Warriors automatically becomes my home team. PW is the most recent entry in the IPL race. Now there are few things intriguing and interesting and surprising I feel about this team.

First, it is the most costliest team among all the teams and team made doesn't seem worth.

I was very happy when Saurav Ganguly was included as a part of the team. That made it one more reason for me to favor this team.Unfortunately, even Pune Warriors management also started following the same footsteps as KKR and rumors about Saurav not playing some of the later part of IPL5 matches started emerging. But Saurav is Saurav.  He is one of those people whose presence or absence make equal and loud sound. His dramatic run after taking a wicket and leading PW to win that match reminded every body of Lord's Shirt swinging moment once and it turned out to be one of the memorable sights of IPL5.

PW has been unfortunate with the foreign players. They tried to bring big names for the team but nothing ever clicked for them. I am not sure who make suggestions to PW but the names that connect with PW surely do not carry that aura of 20:20 expert with them. May then it be Graham Smith from SA, Michael Clarke from  Australia or any body else. They don't have Mr. Dependable.

The bowling attack is very weak. I wonder if it even exists. Except for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, there is no sensible bowler. Taking Donald as Bowling coach is not going to help if he has nobody good to groom and teach.

One of the most talked about player in 20:20 format, Yuvraj Singh is a part of PW squad. Last year unfortunately, he could not play because of his ailment. This year he did joined, but has not been able to make a mark he is known for. Plus there has been some issue surrounding him regarding Captaincy that has been surfacing again and again.

One of the major drawbacks with PW is the Captaincy issue. This year they have already tried three different captains in eight matches. The situation is so worse that even a one game hero and otherwise hardly known Finch is rewarded Captaincy and favored over other better and experienced players like Ross Taylor and Angelo Mathews

When IPL started, one thing that was advertised prominently was it will help to groom some local talent as they will get a chance to share the dressing room with big-wig players and learn from them. I see almost all the other teams except PW following it. They all have at least one to two local players. But I don't any such thing with PW. How does one consider it as a representative of Pune or rest of Maharashtra then. Guess PW team is purely professional without any sentimental connection with the Pune city it is representing.

Well these are just some impressions I made over the time. They are bound to be temporary and might change totally as the season progresses. So, do not take them seriously.

In the next post I will talk about another team participating in the series.