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Pune: It can't be called a battle between the laggards yet. But it's quite clear that when Pune Warriors host Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday, it will be a contest between two weaker teams of the league. Of course, on their days, both teams can beat any team, like 'supercats' Pune showed with wins over Rajasthan Royals and mighty Chennai Super Kings in their last two games. But they seem to lack the firepower, hence the lack of ability to strike back if things are not going their way.
There is a clear trend in Pune's pattern of play: when they do well, they do it brick by brick, winning small plots in a match on a consistent basis. And when they do badly, they misplace some bricks and the whole script collapses in the process.
That surely puts a question mark on their ability when things are not going their way. However, in the T20 format, the script changes in a span of one or two overs. And Sahara's team can surely bank on that.
Did we say Sahara's? Yes, because it cannot be called Angelo Mathews' team. Yuvraj has missed matches; Steve Smith had not been picked for the first four games quite inexplicably; and emotional Ross Taylor had become captain by default at Chepauk.
Pune head coach Allan Donald feels Yuvraj should not be burdened with captaincy to help him concentrate on batting. That could be true. However, cold stats suggest Yuvraj's performance in the T20 league as captain is better than his record as a mere player.
But Donald should know a thing or two about mental burden. When he played international cricket for South Africa, his team didn't win a single knockout game in the World Cup. Donald, along with Lance Klusener, ran so nervously they failed to win the semifinal against Australia in 1999 despite being just a run away from the final.
If Donald's teams are known to be underperforming units, Mahela Jaywardene's are not. His Lankan teams certainly gave better results in limited-overs cricket than their collective ability suggested.
However, the T20 league is a different cup of tea where the pressure, and interference, from the team owners can become unproductive.
Sunrisers suffer from problems similar to Pune's: a lack of big players who can turn the game on its head in a matter of balls. Hence their battle assumes more significance. Who will blink first? Who will show the daredevilry/misadventure first? Whose basics of the game are stronger and less susceptible under pressure?
Teams from
Pune Warriors India AD Mathews (captain), ER Dwivedi, UA Birla, AB Dinda, AJ Finch, RV Gomez, Harpreet Singh, DS Jadhav, B Kumar, AP Majumdar, M Manhas, MR Marsh, BAW Mendis, AG Murtaza, AM Nayar, IC Pandey, MK Pandey, WD Parnell, Parvez Rasool, M Rawat, KW Richardson, MN Samuels, R Sharma, SPD Smith, TL Suman, Tamim Iqbal, LRPL Taylor, K Upadhyay, RV Uthappa (wk), SB Wagh, LJ Wright, Yuvraj Singh
Sunrisers Hyderabad KC Sangakkara (captain), Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, A Ashish Reddy, Q de Kock, S Dhawan, JP Duminy, CA Lynn, NL McCullum, CJ McKay, A Mishra, PA Patel (wk), NLTC Perera, P Prasanth, V Pratap Singh, S Rana, DB Ravi Teja, PA Reddy, BB Samantray, DJG Sammy, I Sharma, KV Sharma, DW Steyn, X Thalaivan Sargunam, S Tyagi, GH Vihari, CL White
Match facts
Wednesday April 17, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 16:00 local (1030 GMT)
