The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Mumbai Indians may shuffle batting order, says Pollock

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Mumbai Indians may shuffle batting order, says Pollock

Tendulkar or Jayasuriya could bat down the order

Centurion: With finishing becoming a major headache for Mumbai Indians, the team’s chief mentor and advisor Shaun Pollock says his side might take the gamble of sending one of its in-form openers — Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya — down the order in the remaining matches.

Tendulkar and Jayasuriya have done well in the opening slot, but Pollock said the option of sending one of them down the batting order could be considered to consolidate the side’s fragile middle order.

“It is a thought. I think we have the experience of J.P. Duminy and Dwayne Bravo at four and five. They have played enough international cricket.

“If they get going at the front, we have seen how destructive Sanath and Sachin can be at Port Elizabeth.

“They have played all their cricket up there. I don’t want to be changing their position too much. But as I say, in the middle order, we need to finish games like that, if we want to go far in this tournament,”Pollock said after Mumbai Indians lost by 19 runs to Deccan Chargers.

Mumbai Indians has won just three of its eight matches and Pollock admitted it was not an ideal situation considering there are not many games left in the league stage.

“Let’s be honest, this doesn’t make life any easier for us. Games are starting to run out. We haven’t had a winning streak as yet, we need to try and get on a roll. It is a disappointment, there is no doubt about that,”he said.

Disappointed but...

“Teams should be able to get over these disappointments and turn things around. I still believe we have got the team that can do it. I am confident of the players, their abilities and what they can achieve. So we will focus on the next game and try and turn it around then,” Pollock added.

The former South African skipper said despite the poor run, Mumbai Indians still harbours hopes of a semifinal berth as the tournament remains surprisingly open.

“That’s the lucky situation we do find ourselves in. We know we haven’t played anything like we can in the last few games. We have still got the ability to win and get through.

“I think if we look at the conditions they are obviously foreign to high percentage of the players in each team. So it hasn’t really been a line-up that is settled.

“I think in many ways, the overseas players have been the ones who have won the games for your teams. And I think that’s maybe the reason why.

“It’s very open, it’s going to be a tightly fought contest on who gets into the semifinals. We might find that the last few games are very, very important whereas last year they weren’t so,”he said. — PTI

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