Blogs Board’s President XI: Ready-To-Rumble
September 28th, 2008 by kapoorThe Australians have reached India and would first square off against a bunch of very talented and aggressive players of the Board’s President XI. The side’s biggest attraction is Yuvraj Singh. He has been given the opportunity to captain the Board President’s XI side in the four-day match against the Australians in Hyderabad and prove his mettle. This could come in handy in case of any injuries to the famed Indian batting middle order during the long test series that is about to commence. The warm-up game will be held on October 2.
Yuvraj Singh has been trying to prove his detractors wrong for a long time. However, he only has himself to blame. In the few opportunities that he got in the Indian test team, he has failed to impress upon the selectors as a dependable middle-order batsman. Yes, he is talented but what is the use of someone who has drawn comparison with the Great Sir Gary Sobers to have achieved so little Test success in his career. Since 2006, he has played in only 13 Tests where nine of the test matches were held in 2006. He has averaged only 29.42 in this duration with two centuries to his credit. His weakness against quality spin bowling is very evident.
The squad has quality fast bowlers like Sreesanth who has been missing from action due to a spate of injuries. Opener Wasim Jaffer, despite making an impression with his patient knocks over the last three years had lost his place in Test side to Gautam Gambhir. He now has an opportunity to impress the selectors again. Aakash Chopra wasn’t selected for India A which completed against Australia A and New Zealand A. Now, he has been named in the squad and has the chance to impress everyone with his unquestioned talent and playing technique.
The Board President’s squad also has Ashok Dinda who impressed everyone in the first edition of the IPL and Pragyan Ojha who has made a big impression with his traditional form of slow left-arm bowling. Apart from Ojha, one more left-arm spinner who would be looking forward to this battle is Rakesh Dhurv. He has taken 23 wickets at a miserly average of 21.56 from the last eight Ranji games.
