Mumbai, April 14: Kochi have posted decent totals of 161 and 148 against Bangalore and Pune Warriors in their first two games, but their bowling department let them down on both occasion. Against Pune, Kochi were in is serious trouble at 24 for four but an excellent partnership of 88 in 64 balls between Ravindra Jadeja and Brad Hodge saved the day for the Mahela Jayawardene-led side. Kochi skipper Jayawardene too has been a disappointment as he has not found even a small per cent of the touch that helped him make a fabulous century for Sri Lanka at the same Wankhede Stadium less than a fortnight ago. Misfiring opener Brendon McCullum and his partner V V S Laxman also will have fire in unison up the order tomorrow at the floodlit Wankhede Stadium.
However, it is the form of their new ball bowlers R P Singh, the leading wicket taker in the first three editions combined, and temperamental S Sreesanth, which remains a major concern for Kochi. Both R P Singh and Sreesanth have been guilty of spraying the ball around and would need to improve vastly against the likes of Tendulkar to have a realistic chance.
If that was not enough, retired Sri Lankan spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan too has been struggling and was taken apart by a little-known domestic cricketer, Mohnish Mishra in the end overs yesterday. And Jayawardene was candid enough to admit that the team might look at other options in the bowling attack for future matches. “(Changing Murali) It depends on the opposition. We could use different combinations. We are trying to see what the best eleven could be with Steven (Smith of Australia) coming in (after the ODI series in Bangladesh). We have to come out with a game plan for Friday,” he had said. With Australian all-rounder John Hastings expected to join the team before the next month, Kochi would have more options in their bowling combination but the limit of only four foreigners in the playing eleven means that the domestic bowlers need to buck up. Jayawardene was not happy that his team had come close to winning their opening two gamea “In both the games we ran close, but it is not enough. We have to win the games.
We have to regroup and come back well in the next game,” he said. The teams (from): Kochi Tuskers Kerala: Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Brendon McCullum, Parthiv Patel (wk), VVS Laxman, Owais Shah, Brad Hodge,Ravindra Jadeja, Thisara Perera, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ramesh Powar, R Vinay Kumar, Muttiah Muralitharan, B Akhil, Chandan Madan, Deepak Chougule, Kedar Jadav, Raiphi Gomez, Sushant Marathe, Tanmay Srivastava, Y Gnaneswara Rao, Yashpal Singh, Prasanth Padmanabhan, Steven Smith, John Hastings. Mumbai Indians: Sachin Tendulkar (capt.), Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Andrew Symonds, Davy Jacobs, James Franklin, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Aditya Tare, Ali Murtuza, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni, Pawan Suyal, R Satish, Sarul Kanwar, Suryakumar Yadav, T Suman. Yuzvendra Singh Chahai.
——–PTI