How did the Warriors lose it all?

Sourav Ganguly

There is a saying in cricket, that great players do not necessarily form a great team. Pune Warriors India are justifying this saying through their performances in this year’s IPL. There is no doubt that Pune boasts of some of the finest players in the IPL like Michael Clarke, Angelo Matthews, Steven Smith, Jesse Ryder and the legendary former Indian captain Sourav ‘Dada’ Ganguly who is the captain of the team. To add to the team, they have a good bunch of Indian cricketers such as the likes of Ashish Nehra, Ashok Dinda, Murali Kartik and Robin Utthapa. In Alan Donald, they have a world class bowling coach. But still, the franchise is unable to live up to the high expectations of their fans.

They started on a good note by winning matches on a regular basis and beating teams like the Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians. Their batsmen were doing quite well and Robin Utthapa was among the early contenders for the coveted Orange Cap. Steven Smith was performing well with the bat as well. Dinda and Kartik were doing a decent job with the ball.

So the question arises, how did it all go wrong in the later stages of the tournament?

You do not need to be a rocket scientist to know that Pune missed the bus. I believe that Pune need to ponder over the following points:

1) Dada’s dismal batting form:

Sourav Ganguly is the sort of a player whose batting form affects his captaincy and vice versa. He has scored 261 runs at a strike rate of just above 100 in 13 games. Undoubtedly, it is very poor compared to the man’s usual high standards. Agreed that he does not play international cricket anymore and is a bit rusty being 40 years old, but Ganguly knew the consequences of playing in the IPL and not performing to the level of colossal expectations. Playing in the team only as the captain wouldn’t greatly help Pune’s challenge in the IPL.

2) Specialist batsmen warming benches:

The first question that Pune needs to ask to itself is, how many matches have the dangerous duo of Callum Ferguson and Tamim Iqbal played? Pune was performing well when Ferguson was in the side. After he lost his place to Angelo Matthews, Matthews has been on a downward spiral. Matthews’s continued place in the side has baffled everybody watching the IPL.

Tamim Iqbal who was coming off five brilliant consecutive international half centuries and was in the form of his life, has been shockingly overlooked. He was not given a chance when Pune were struggling to find a solid opening combination.

3) Michael Clarke:

The Australian captian is really having a bad patch as far as T20 is concerned. The man who was supposed to be Pune’s saviour has terribly disappointed his team, the fans and himself. Since Clarke is a ‘big player’, Pune have given him more chances than the likes of Ferguson, which have obviously ended in disappointment. They forgot that even big players go through bad patches sometimes. Playing Tamim Iqbal would’ve have been a far smarter move.

4) Utthapa’s batting position:

If there is one player in the Pune camp who can turn the game on its head, it’s Robin Utthapa. To adjust the other batsmen into the side, Robin has had to sacrifice his batting positions a number of times. Sometimes, he was sent at No. 3 and other times at at No. 4 or No.5. He was even sent to open the innings! I feel that frequently changing the batting order can be really disturbing for a batsman because he tends to forget his role in the side. If he bats in the middle order, his role is more of a controller or a builder of an innings, but when he is sent to open the innings, his role changes to that of a demolisher. This has been Uthappa’s tale in IPL 5.

It seems to me that Sourav Ganguly has lost faith in some of his players’ ability and that is the reason we have seen so many changes in the side. They are already out of this competition and the least Ganguly can do is play players like Iqbal in the remaining inconsequential matches.

This is going to be Ganguly’s last IPL and his last tournament ever as a player. Ganguly wants to mentor the team from next season, as told by Subrata Roy. So it is about time that Ganguly boosts the confidence of the struggling side by leaving with his head held high.