GEOFF MARSH AND YUVRAJ SINGH DEMAND MORE FROM PUNE WARRIORS



Pune Warriors’ Coach Geoff Marsh has stipulated more from his dazzling batting line-up while heading into Friday’s Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter against Bangalore.

Pune started their IPL campaign in style with victories over Kings XI Punjab and Kochi Tuskers but after those wins, Pune have taken the back seat by losing four consecutive matches, which leave Marsh’s army decayed at second last position in the 10-team standings.

However, the Kiwis' left-handed batsman, Jesse Ryder has remained a relatively consistent force at the top of the thud. The habitual failure of Graeme Smith, Tim Paine, Mohnish Mishra, Mithun Manhas and Manish Pandey have far too often left Yuvraj Singh and Robin Uthappa to take the burden throughout the immensity of the innings.

A veer of early wickets, once against Mumbai and twice against Chennai, has left Captain and the hard hitter Yuvraj shepherding the weaker tail-enders rather than manipulating the willow, which has predictably led to imperfect scores from the PW.

"Our batting is letting us down. We have stopped getting away to starts. We have lost four wickets inside the first six overs and we have been making the same mistakes over and over again. We will have a meeting about that but we have to be competitive," said Marsh.

The coach went on to add, "Because we have lost four wickets early we are not going into the last eight overs with wickets in hand. We have Yuvraj or Robin batting out there, with five or six wickets down. You then can't afford to lose any more wickets. What it boils down to is, again, getting off to a good start."

Pune were the frontrunners through the opening stages of the tournament, but now they are the backbenchers athwart a very cutthroat project. Pune remain in controversy for a semifinal place regardless, due to the prolonged nature of the event.

The team still have to play eight matches in the tournament, starting with Friday’s clash against the Royal Challengers. Marsh is self-assured that his men have sufficient fight in them to eventually secure a berth with the table toppers Chennai and Mumbai.

Geoff Marsh concluded that the whole competition is equally open at the moment for every team. However, they need to focus on winning the next game and perform better at the top. If they start winning, they have got eight games to go, so they have every chance to be one of the top four teams of the competition.

Skipper Yuvraj Singh meanwhile, has praised sentiments of Marsh and asked for improvement from his charges in Bangalore.

"We have not applied ourselves with the bat. We keep making the same mistakes again and again. We have lost too many wickets at the start. We need to bounce back, we need to think about it and not make the same mistakes again and again," concluded Singh.

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Chennai Super Kings v Pune Warriors – Match Recap

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) met the Pune Warriors (PW) for the second time in the 31^st match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on 27 April, 2011, at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy, Mumbai.
CSK ended up thrashing the PW by a huge margin of eight wickets. This match included, CSK have now played six matches and acquired 6 points, winning three of them.
On the other hand, the PW have played five matches and acquired four points, winning two and losing three matches.
After winning the toss, the Pune Warriors opted to bat first. Jesse Ryder and MD Mishra opened for the Warriors but could not provide a stable start. Pune lost both openers at a total of 22 runs in a single over by Doggie Bollinger.
After Ryder and Mishra, neither MK Pandey nor M Manhas could resurrect the innings, the Warriors succumbed to pressure, losing two more wickets and totaling in at 41/4.
As the pressure mounted, skipper Yuvraj Singh and the wicketkeeper batsman RV Uthappa stood tall to face the CSK aggression. The two played tremendously and replied back with a partnership of 42 runs.
Was it not for R Ashwin, CSK might have had a bigger number to go after. Ashwin halted the Pune caravan, scalping the valuable Uthappa (31 off 22).
Yuvraj Singh, playing a captain’s inning, blazed 62 off 43, hitting four sixes and three fours. He remained unbeaten till the very end, leading Pune to post a respectable target of 142.
CSK, in pursuit of a fairly manageable target, started their innings with openers Michael Hussey and M Vijay. Pune got their first breakthrough when Hussey was caught off M Kartik at a total of 19 runs.
S Badrinath was the next man in for the Super Kings. He crushed Pune’s ambitions, striking a 61 run partnership with Vijay. The duo was split later when Vijay was caught by Manhas off Ryder, but the damage had been done.
Suresh Raina took charge after Vijay fell. Suresh and Badrinath kept going strong while the patchy Pune attack failed to penetrate their defenses. The two finished things off in the last over with Badrinath unbeaten on 63 and Raina on 34.
The Chennai Super Kings bagged a decisive victory against the Pune Warriors, successfully chasing the 142 run target with 8 wickets in hand and 3 balls to spare.

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Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming satisfied with bowling and fielding displays

Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming accredited his team’s 25-run win over Pune Warriors India at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai to the bowlers and fielders of the side.

He urged the players to emulate the standard of fielding in the upcoming matches of the ongoing Indian Premier League.

“We would look to replicate this standard of fielding in our coming matches,” said the former New Zealand skipper while talking to the reporters at the post-match media conference. “Today, we were desperate to win. This kind of fielding helps the bowler to be a bit more confident and gives the skipper much more confidence to dictate the game.”

Fleming confessed that their fielding was below par in the previous games and they were desperate to make the difference. He insisted that the side still needs to work hard in this department.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men were quite unimpressive with the bat as the side managed to score 142 for 6 in 20 overs- thanks to the heroics of Michael Hussey who scored 61 off 48 balls hitting 4 boundaries and a six. In reply, the Warriors were 117 for 9 at the end of their allotted 20 overs.

The 38-year-old New Zealander admitted that Chennai were 15 odd runs short of a competitive score. Even then, he was happy with his bowlers and fielders were successful in putting the opposition under pressure in the second half of the game.

“We knew it was a below par score. Since our best players were struggling on that track, we felt it would be a tough score to attain,” said Fleming.

“We knew we had to bowl and field well. We increased the pressure on the rival batsmen as the match progressed. When they were scoring at six runs an over, we knew we had a good chance to win the match,” he added further.

The Chennai coach termed Jesse Ryder’s wicket as the turning point in the game. Fleming said that had the hard-hitting Kiwi batsman gone for some big hits, it would have been quite difficult for them to defend their total.

The defending champions are currently placed on number four on the tournament points table with a tally of 6 points from 3 victories in 5 games.

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Mumbai Indians run over Pune Warriors at Wankhede

PW 118 17.2 overs MI 124/3 20 overs

Despite a last ditch effort, a horror start spelt doom for Pune Warriors, as they went down against the much vaunted Mumbai Indians team at Wankhede stadium Mumbai, in a crucial match of the Indian Premier League season four.

The match went down to the last ball, as the hosts stuttered in their easy chase, one run was needed off the last ball, which was deposited over the extra cover boundary by Rohit Sharma.

Earlier in the day, the Warriors batted first on a strip that looked full of runs at the renovated venue, which was once again in pomp condition.

However, the pleasant conditions did little to inspire the Warriors, as the opening four batsmen were sent packing with only 17 runs on the board. The opening pair of Jesse Ryder and Tim Paine were sent back almost immediately, while the body blow was the loss of captain and ICC 2011 World Cup man of the tournament, Yuvraj Singh.

Yuvraj was dismissed by his Indian teammate Munaf Patel for a duck after he was snapped up behind the wickets.

All eyes were on Robin Uthappa, the former Indian middle order batsman, but he found little support from the other end, as one batsmen fell after another in an attempt of upping the tempo.

Uthappa scored 45 runs, which included a monstrous six off Kieron Pollard. Despite his efforts the Warriors managed a paltry total of 118. Patel was the destroyer-in-chief. The right-armer claimed 3 wickets for only 8 runs.

The Indians started their chase on a poor note. James Franklin, who was promoted in the batting order was dismissed for only 6 runs. The top scorer of the tournament, Sachin Tendulkar, went about his task with his usual calm, as he scored 35 off 39 balls before falling to Rahul Sharma.

Rohit Sharma and Andrew Symonds were unusually circumspect in the closing overs, at one stage the hosts needed a mere 20 runs off the last three overs, yet inexplicably the match was taken down to the last ball by the pair.

Sharma sealed a win for the Indians with a six. Munaf Patel was named man of the match.

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