I have always considered KL Rahul as a very thinking cricketer. He has captained Punjab Kings and now he is captaining Lucknow Super-Giants. Of course, the team of Lucknow has lost the first match but the combination of this team is very good. Rahul’s getting out early in the first match was also one of the reasons that he came under pressure. This also affected his body language. He still needs to learn a lot under captaincy and whatever he learns can be useful in future for Team India as he is a contender for the position of future captain of Team India.
The body language of Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Mayank Agarwal was completely different as compared to Rahul. All these captains had come to the field after doing a lot of homework. Sometimes the captain’s thinking doesn’t matter much as one over affects the whole match. One over from Mohammad Siraj for RCB went against the team where he had given away 25 runs.
Nice to see young players doing well in this IPL. Be it Ayush Badoni or Deepak Hooda, Umran Malik and Tilak Verma. They have to maintain this performance even in future. Badoni batted exceptionally well. Among the rest of the bowlers, young players like Umran Malik and Prasidh Krishna also impressed a lot. Such players should be sent to the NCA and they should be trained in a professional manner. They have to cover 140 kmph. A lot of bowlers will be found today, but the bowlers with the speed of 150 are very few. Such players should be trained and promoted in a professional manner.
The loss of Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings in the first match is a big lesson for them. Surely both these teams are missing some of their old players but the think tank of these teams are so strong that with the help of support staff, they will bounce back and win the hearts of everyone by performing as brilliantly as before.
The author is a Dronacharya Award winner besides being coach of Virat Kohli.