The pacer has been praised by his captain and coach Shane Warne who said that Kamran bowls at 140 plus and with some guidance Kamran will be able to develop into a great bowler in the future. Kamran is overwhelmed by is success in the last few weeks and everybody is supporting him too. But let us hope that he does not leave his concentration and becomes a very find for India in the long term.

Rajasthan Royals had a warm up match against Cape Cobras today named “Clash of the Champions” . Cape Cobras are the South African domestic T20 champions and Rajasthan Royals were the winners of IPL season 1 and so it was marketed as the clash of the the winners. The match started interestingly with Cape Cobras winning the toss and deciding to bat. The Rajasthan Royals team was mainly filled with the Indian domestic players of Rajasthan Royals. The Indian pacers of Rajasthan Royals started out well with Amit Singh, Trivedi and Kamran Khan. Kamran Khan was more prominent of the lot although he bowled only a single over giving only one run and taking a wicket. His pace was good and he was also extracting good swing from the wicket. The Cobras struggled against the Indian pacers and were 65/5 after 11.5 overs. But then their batsmen started hitting well and the Cobras ended at a respectable score of 142/8 in their allotted 20 overs.

The Rajasthan Royals batsmen were quite impressive initially with Victorian batsman Rob Quiney (34 off 22 balls) hitting the Cobras for fours and sixes. But then the rest of the Royals batsmen got out cheaply with some very good bowling and fielding performance by the Cobras. Shane Warne (21 off 19 balls) tried to save the innings but it was too late. At last they got all out in 19 overs for 115 runs and the Cobras won the match by 27 runs.

However, the positives of the game for Rajasthan Royals was that their international players looked in good from with Quiney, Warne and Henderson looking good. The other good thing was the Indian bowlers in RR squad bowled some good spells too especially Kamran Khan and Amit Singh.

The Rajasthan Royals squad are looking a good unit though they do not look as powerful as the other squads and I doubt if they would be able to retain their title this year. Let us hope that the Rajasthan Royals squad performs well when they play their full side in the IPL T20 season 2.

Andrew Flintoff is quite hopeful that his appearance in the IPL T20 season 2 will help him in learning a lot about the T20 game. Flintoff will be playing his first IPL match for Chennai Super Kings on April 18 against Mumbai Indians after CSK had bought him for $1.55 in the IPL auctions this year. Last year the English players were not allowed to play in IPL but four English players have been bought by the IPL franchisees this year including Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Flintoff has been suffering from injuries and problems for quite sometime but he thinks the IPL would help him revive his body once again. And he believes that this would help him immensely in preparations for the ICC Twenty20 World Cup in England which would follow the IPL. He also said that he would great benefit being in Chennai Super Kings as he would be able to learn from great players like Dhoni, Hayden and Muralidharan. He said that he would be speaking to the other Indian guys too and try to ‘pick their brains’. He believes that the league is a very good platform to exchange knowledge between the players and he will also benefit from it.

However, Flintoff is also worried that the English players should not reveal too much information about their team-mates while conversing with their IPL team-mates as that might be detrimental for England team. Flintoff’s second match would be against his English team-mate Kevin Pietersen’s side Bangalore Royal Challengers on April 20. Anyways lets wait and see how IPL would help Flintoff and how Flintoff would help IPL.

Rahil Sheikh: Rahil is a left arm fast bowler and will play for Mumbai Indians in the IPL. He made his first class debut in this Ranji season for Mumbai, played three matches took 9 wickets, but the biggest thing which impressed everybody about him was his pace and bounce. He is tall around 6 foot 4 inches, still raw, and working on his bowling under the eyes of Shaun Pollock in Mumbai Indians. He impressed Sachin Tendulkar in IPL last year when he was bowling in the nets to him and then he was signed by Mumbai Indians. I hope he will get to play in the guidance of Zaheer Khan and learn some trick from him.

Umesh Yadav: This guy was the most impressive fast bowler in the just concluded first class season as he progressed very similar to his bowling which is very quick. He first started playing U-22 matches for Vidarbha and after only two matches he was drafted in the ranji side and played 4 matches took 20 wickets, and then Duleep trophy where he took 5 wickets in the first innings including the wickets of VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid. This year he will play for Delhi Daredevils under the eyes of TA Shekher and Glenn McGrath. His biggest asset is his pace and incoming deliveries by which he trapped Dravid into shortleg which is very unusual for Dravid to get out against a fast bowler. He bowled over 140 Ks in that Duleep Trophy match and he is now a big hope of Indian cricket.

Sudeep Tyagi: This will be a long awaited debut for Sudeep Tyagi if he makes it as he was signed last season but could not play because of a serious back injury in a Devdhar Trophy match and he had to sit on the sidelines for a long time. He will play for Chennai Superkings and I hope he will make full use of the opportunities given to him. He emerged on the scene in 2007 Ranji trophy when from no where Mohmmad Kaif picked him during the ranji trials as he was impressed of his pace and bounce being a tall man and he immediately played his first ranji match and created history after taking 10 wickets on debut and at the end of the season he emerged as the highest wicket taker, but an unfortunate injury haunted his progress and he had sit out for 6 months before he was picked for India A against Australia A where he again showed whey he was rated so high by his captain. In a four day game, he destroyed Australia A batting line up with his pace and reverse swing which had players like Simon Katich, Philip Hughes, Adam Voges, Marcus North, Luke Rhonchi and all these players have played for Australia. Even Australia A captain Katich and coach were impressed with his pace and reverse swing.

Anureet Singh: He plays for Railways in ranji and will play for Knight Riders in this IPL. He is a tall fast bowler who is talked about a lot in the domestic circuit and then went in KKR trials camp and selected to play fro KKR. Lets hope he delivers what he is selected for.