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Shane Warne all praise for youngsters

G. Viswanath

— Photo: PTI

Jadeja.

Jaipur: After scoring a thumping win over the Sourav Ganguly-led Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday, Rajasthan Royals skipper Shane Warne was all praise for the youngsters in his team — Swapnil Asnodkar, Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja. He hailed their contribution in the Jaipur team’s 45-run triumph.

While Knight Riders may have expected Hampshire’s Dimitri Mascarenhas to play his first IPL match, Warne sprung a surprise; he chose Asnodkar and even dropped Salunkhe.

“We thought they would not expect Swapnil to play, so we tried to pull a surprise with an extra batsman. I had told him that his chance would come when the opposition is not expecting him to play and we will throw him in as a surprise tactic. I have done a lot of work with him in the last couple of weeks. He was fantastic.

Jadeja superb

“Jadeja was superb with the bat and on the field. He could be a super star of Indian cricket. Pathan used his brain. With Watson (Shane) getting a terrible decision and Graeme Smith not making many runs, to make 196 was a fantastic effort,” said Warne.

He added that his young and inexperienced side was bubbling with enthusiasm. “I have put Jadeja in spots where the ball would go a lot. Kaif was running mid-on all the time. Pathan was on the longest boundary. These youngsters are playing on the big stage. As captain and coach I try and get the best out of each and every individual.

“I bring in 20 years of knowledge in summing up situations and suggesting ways to score, to construct an over, to be positive in your head and back yourself. To their credit they are playing exceptional cricket. They are learning very fast, one can see the improvement in the side.

“Even when young Patel (Niraj) dropped that catch (of Ganguly), all of us ran up to him and said, bad luck mate, go and get the next one. Never underestimate the good team spirit. Sid (Trivedi) is improving in every single game,” added Warne.

On the hop

And finally summing up his team’s fourth win he said, “I don’t know if were smarter, but we may have caught Knight Riders on the hop. Our field set up was good, most of them back on the fence, mid-on and mid-off up and bouncers. We were smarter than them. John Buchanan was their coach and now they have to go back to the computer.”

Representing Baroda and Goa and their respective zones in the domestic circuit, Pathan and Asnodkar are used to the anxieties of first class cricket. Jadeja has proved his mettle in the under-19 age group; he was part of the Indian team that won the ICC World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.

And the likes of Gujarat’s Niraj Patel and Siddharth Trivedi, Mumbai’s Dinesh Salunkhe, Punjab’s Taruwar Kohli and even Munaf Patel and Mohammad Kaif are living their dreams; of sharing the dressing room with a legendary cricketer and a master tactician.

Hopefully at the conclusion of the IPL they would return home as better cricketers.

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