Bouncing Yorkers | Tanuj Khosla
Life has come full circle for Yuvraj Singh in the last few months. From being crowned as the Player of the Tournament in India's World Cup victory last year to being ridden with one injury after another (one sustained during the Nottingham Test in England that cut short his tour) to being dropped from the Test team for the third Test in the home series against West Indies to being diagnosed with a non-malignant lung tumour.
Now there is another piece of bad news which in my opinion is the greatest setback for Yuvraj as well as for Indian cricket. According to news sources, Yuvraj has travelled to the United States in order to undergo "advanced treatment" for the tumour following which there will be a period of recuperation expected to take several months. This means that he shall be definitely missing IPL 5 and quite a bit of international cricket before and after that for the Indian team. Continue reading below
I am a great fan of Yuvraj and have been one since the day he scored 84 against Australia in one of his early games way back in 2000. Had it not been for his heroics last year, forget winning the World Cup, the Indian team may not have even made it to the top four. I wish him speedy recovery from the bottom of my heart.
However as they say - one man's bad luck can be another's fortune. This development has left absolutely no doubt in my mind that the sooner than later that Sahara, the owners of Pune Warriors India shall announce Sourav Ganguly - a player who was not selected by any franchise during IPL 4 and got inducted in as an injury replacement last year, as the new captain of Pune Warriors India. The only competition Ganguly has in Pune Warriors India squad is from Graeme Smith who doesn't have an impressive record of captaincy in this format. To make matters worse, his form seems to have dipped in the last few months. Besides making Ganguly the captain in the absence of Yuvraj would be a sensible business decision considering the latter's mass appeal in the country. I am sure that Sahara would be well aware of this.
If one takes a look at the squad of Pune Warriors India, there are quite a few impressive names there. Accurate bowlers like Wayne Parnell, Alfonso Thomas, Jerome Taylor etc., explosive hitters like Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappa, and allrounders like Jesse Ryder and Mitchell Marsh. Ganguly definitely would have a team that can go the way in the tournament. The question is - will he be able to lead and inspire them to the title? I wish so.
Also I hope to that the talented duo of Khadiwale and Jhunjhunwala, middle-order Indian batsmen in the Pune Warrior India's squad, get more opportunities under Ganguly.
I am not a Shah Rukh Khan hater but it would be amusing to see his face if Pune India Warriors under the leadership of Ganguly beat Kolkata Knight Riders in the final or the semi-final of IPL 5. Even better, imagine a scenario in which Kolkata Knight Riders have to beat Sahara Pune Warriors in a must-win game to land a berth in the semi-finals and are denied victory by a scintillating century by dada.
Cricket has had its share of bizarre and unbelievable moments in the past. Ganguly's almost certain rise from a player whom no one wanted to a captain of one of the franchise teams in less than a year is nothing short of dramatic. But something tells me that there is more drama in store, there always is when dada is around. When does the IPL begin again?
