Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) and Gujarat Lions (GL), the two teams that replaced Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals in Season 9 of the Indian Premier League (IPL), have their own tales to tell.
Pune, led by India’s ODI and T20I captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, have a had a terrible debut while GL led by Suresh Raina, the youngest captain of the edition, are looking favourites for the playoffs in their first season itself.
Right from the start of their campaign, GL have figured in the top three while Pune languished at the bottom and finally got ejected losing their eighth match – an agonising four-run defeat against the Sunrisers Hyderabad on Tuesday.
The rookie, Raina, has clearly surprised and overtaken his senior and seasoned captain, Dhoni.
Pune’s top guns Kevin Pietersen, Steve Smith and Faf du Plessis had to withdraw due to injuries, thus weakening the batting department considerably.
After a somewhat shaky start, when Smith finally found his brilliant touch and scored his maiden century, a wrist injury ruled him out for the rest of the season.
Adding to these woes, allrounder Mitchell Marsh too had to fly back home injured while Dhoni’s own form has not been that good, which further weakened the Pune team.
Legspinner Adam Zampa has made strides since making his debut and his 6 for 19 against Hyderabad on Tuesday is the second best ever for IPL, but even that couldn’t turn Pune’s future around.
Raina’s story as the leader of the Lions’ pride is exactly the opposite.
The rookie captain, for one thing, has the best firepower both in batting and bowling. ‘A captain is only as good as the team’ fits in best here.
Between Aaron Finch, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith and Raina himself, the team has scored heavily and at a fast clip.
Praveen Kumar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Thambe, freak left-arm chinaman Shivil Kaushik and the irrepressible Dwayne Bravo as bowling unit have managed to limit or put brakes on teams decisively.
Their form indicates Gujarat are all set for the playoffs unless they fail to keep up their good work in the home stretch of the league stage.
Even when Pune Supergiants posted a challenging target of 192, Royal Challengers Bangalore managed to chase it down with a brilliant century from their captain Virat Kohli.
What puzzled viewers was India’s most experienced and effective bowler of late, R Ashwin, bowled only one over in that innings. It is not clear whether Ashwin was injured and hence did not complete the quota of 4 overs.
There is no doubt about Dhoni still being one of the best captains in contemporary cricket, but retirement as Test captain, the shutdown of CSK and the present situation of Pune Supergiants seems to have drained him out.
Questions may have been raised by the likes of Sourav Ganguly and Sunil Gavaskar about Dhoni continuing as India skipper, but one can’t rule out the country’s best captain ever to strike back when pushed against the wall.
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