Ponting gives lessons to Mumbai Indians’s youngsters

March 31, 2015 03:53 am | Updated 03:53 am IST - Mumbai:

MASTER AND DISCIPLE: Mumbai Indians' head coach Ricky Pointing gives some batting tips to Nitish Rana during the team's practice session on Monday. Photo: Vivek Bendre

MASTER AND DISCIPLE: Mumbai Indians' head coach Ricky Pointing gives some batting tips to Nitish Rana during the team's practice session on Monday. Photo: Vivek Bendre

Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting gave batting lessons to Delhi’s Unmukt Chand and Nitish Rana and Baroda’s Hardik Pandya at Mumbai Indians’ first practice session at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday.

Ponting focused on the execution of his favourite ‘pull shot’.

Head Coach of MI for the Pepsi IPL-8, Ponting gave personal attention to the former India U-19 captain and Delhi opener Unmukt.

Fellow Australian Aiden Blizzard and other Indian players in the MI squad — R. Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun, Parthiv Patel — took part in the first day’s net session. But the likes of Unmukt, Pandya and Rana may consider it as time well spent, with Ponting explaining to them the nuances of the pull shot and the need to roll their wrists to keep the ball down.

Ponting spent nearly an hour with the three, starting with Rana who was bought at the auction for Rs. 10 lakh.

Rana is a 21-year-old left-hand batsman and a right-arm off-break bowler; he has played three one-day matches and six Twenty20.

Ponting began with under-arm direct flicks (chest high) to Pandya and finished with plenty of throw-downs which was generally short stuff. “We are going to learn a lot from him,” said a delighted Pandya.

With other Indian and overseas players and bowling coach Shane Bond expected to join the MI squad in a day or two, there will be plenty of activity in the middle.

MI is scheduled to play an “internal match” on April 4, a day before it leaves for Kolkata for the inaugural match against Kolkata Knight Riders on April 8.

“Ricky has been very good and a real professional,” said an MI official.

“He is very involved with the team. Even when he stepped down as captain and made way for Rohit Sharma to lead, he used to spend quality time with the young cricketers at net sessions.

“So is Robin Singh, the assistant batting coach. John Wright is now involved with talent scouting,” said the official.

The Mumbai selectors on Monday released Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare for IPL duties as against keeping them in the Mumbai squad for the Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 knock-out tournament.

Some of the star overseas players in the MI squad are Australians Aaron Finch, Josh Hazlewood, West Indians Kieron Pollard, Lendl Simmons, New Zealand’s Corey Anderson, South Africa’s Marchant de Lange and Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga.

The Indians include Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Shreyas Gopal, Pragyan Ojha, Vinay Kumar, Parthiv Patel and Abhimanyu Mithun.

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