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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Pune Warriors India coach Geoff Marsh disappointed with team’s batting performance

Pune Warriors India coach Geoff Marsh has expressed his disappointment over his batsmen’s unimpressive performance in a critical Indian Premier League game against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday.
The defending champions thrashed the Warriors comprehensively by 8 wickets at the PSA stadium in Mumbai. After electing to bat first, the Pune side could only manage to score 141 for 6 in 20 overs. The total did not prove enough in the end as the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Chennai side achieved the target convincingly with 3 balls to spare.
Marsh feels that captain Yuvraj Singh’s thrilling knock of 62 from just 43 balls gave the Warriors some hope but the rest of the batting line-up let the team down.
“I’m terribly disappointed with our batting on a good wicket. Our batsmen are not putting up enough total for our bowlers to defend. We were 20-30 runs short on a wicket where 160-170 was the par score,” Marsh said.
It was Pune’s second defeat at the hands of CSK in the ongoing tournament. With four consecutive humiliating losses, Pune Warriors are now just one step ahead of Delhi Daredevils, who are at the bottom of the IPL standings.
The Warriors have lost a couple of their key players including Graeme Smith and Ashish Nehra due to injury concerns. The absence of Sri Lankan all-rounder Angelo Matthews has also hurt the team combination.
Although Marsh cited injuries as a huge setback for the side, the coach made it clear that the team has enough talent in its ranks to do well against any side in the competition.
The coach further described that the team has not been able to take a good start in the last few games which is one of prime reasons of their successive defeats.
“We lost a lot of wickets early. With four to six [batsmen] down, the least we can’t afford to do is to lose more wickets. You don’t want to be bowled out. With a poor start like this, you put a lot of pressure on the middle order,” the former Australian opener added.
Marsh, however, hoped Warriors to return to winning ways and make it to the knockout stage of the competition. He also expected that his players would not repeat their previous mistakes in the upcoming games.

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