Richard Levi has done his bit to bring curious Mumbai Indian supporters to the Wankhede Stadium on Friday.
By providing a booming start to the DLF-IPL V and a resounding win for Mumbai Indians in the one-sided skirmish against two-time champion Chennai Super Kings at the MAC Stadium on Wednesday, Levi has given confidence to his team of seeing brighter days ahead in the competition and also luring spectators for MI's eight home matches at the Wankhede Stadium.
MI, last year's finalist, did not waste time in showing off its prized possession and Levi promptly delivered. Levi will get another opportunity when MI takes on Pune Warriors India (PWI) at home on Friday.
Remarkable
Levi's IPL story is remarkable. When he put a reserve price of $50,000 on himself, not even the likes of Shaun Pollock and Jonty Rhodes could nudge their wealthy employer to bid for the anonymous cricketer at the auction in Bangalore.
However, no sooner had the South African 24-year-old clouted 13 sixes and five fours to make a 51-ball undefeated 117 against New Zealand at Hamilton in a Twenty20 international, MI — with Australian Andrew Symonds announcing retirement — snapped him up for $4,00,000.
The fastest century maker in Twenty20 is the odd man out of the three headline making South Africans — the others being seam bowlers Vernon Philander and Marshal de Lange. The 35-ball 50 and man of the match start in the IPL should keep attention riveted on him what with the ICC Twenty20 World Cup about six months away.
Right from the explosive opening pair in Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya, MI has shown a definite tendency to pick and choose batsmen who like to be bold and brave.
But results have been disappointing barring a few big hitting undertakings from the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Adrian Blizzard and Davy Jacobs. It appears Levi could turn out to be far more consistent.
While in the inaugural season MI lost its opening match (to Royal Challengers Bangalore), it has made winning starts against CSK (Cape Town, 2009), Rajasthan Royals (Brabourne, 2010) and Delhi Daredevils (2011, Delhi).
Only concern
The facile win against CSK with the likes of Levi, Lasith Malinga, Kieron Pollard, Pragyan Ojha, Ambati Rayudu and James Franklin playing their part augurs well for the team. The only concern though is the injury suffered by Sachin Tendulkar who left the scene taking a blow from left-arm seamer Doug Bollinger.
After a lot of disputes with the BCCI on a variety of matters there have been plenty of positive developments for PWI with the team owners Sahara India buying Australian captain Michael Clarke for the last six matches.
PWI will be missing Yuvraj Singh (recovering from a germ cell cancer treatment), Graeme Smith (ankle injury) for the entire season and Angelo Mathews for a couple of matches.
There's hope that former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who did not have great time with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), will bring his wealth of experience and knowledge to turnaround the fortunes for PWI in its second season.
Aggressive players
He has some aggressive players like Jesse Ryder, Luke Wright, Marlon Samuels and Alfonso Thomas among the overseas players and Indians in Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Rahul Sharma and Murli Karthik to bank upon.
Last year PWI lost seven matches in a row after two wins against Kings XI Punjab and Kochi Tuskers and more importantly it lost both the home and away matches to MI.
Its owners have planned an elaborate opening ceremony when it plays its first home match against Kings XI Punjab on Sunday at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium. A win against MI would make the celebrations at Pune more memorable.
