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Former New Zealand captain and Chennai Super Kings team member Stephen Fleming will take over as the coach of the IPL team after Kepler Wessels’ contract was not renewed by CSK team management. Last year, Rajasthan Royals became the first team to appoint Shane Warne as their captain-cum-coach and the results were tremendous with RR winning the title last year. Maybe this has led to CSK management also think of appointing Fleming for the coach-cum-player role though M S Dhoni will still lead the side. Though Fleming did not have an exceptional IPL season 1 but the Chennai Super Kings management has praised his tactical insight.

However, he added that he will take inputs from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in his job as he thinks him to be a great captain. He said that they helped each other in IPL 1 and they will work together in IPL T20 season 2 too. He said that the most difficult part of his job would be to choose the best four for each game as they have a great bunch of international players. But when asked about Buchanan’s multiple captaincy theory, he said that it sounded too ‘complicated’.

What are your opinions on this decision. Is Fleming the right man for the coaching job?

West Indies has a bilateral series with England starting from 6th May onwards including two tests and three ODIs. However, if reports are to believed then there was a dispute between the players and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) as this England tour conflicted with the IPL matches. And the main concern of the players were that they were not consulted before fixing this England series suddenly following the withdrawal of Sri Lanka whose players wanted to play in the IPL instead. And now few of the West Indies players have decided to play in the IPL T20 season 2 although they will not boycott the England series completely. West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Bravo will miss both the tests of the England series and will play in the IPL T20 season 2 instead. He was ruled out of the test series as his ankle is still not good for tests. But he has decided to play in the IPL as he believes he is fit enough for T20 cricket. He said that everybody knows the importance of test cricket but his health is not fit for test cricket. Other West Indies players like Chris Gayle and Fidel Edwards will also be playing in IPL 2 but they are set to arrive in England before the first test. However, WICB has kept 17 players in the squad to England as a precautionary measure.

Dwayne Bravo plays for IPL team Mumbai Indians, Edwards plays for Deccan Chargers and Chris Gayle for Kolkata Knight Riders. Hope that from the next year, cricket boards around the world arrange the fixtures in such a way that it does not clash with the IPL.

Less than two weeks to go now for IPL to start which will be played in South Africa this year, maybe not as big as it was last year, but still it holds a lot of promise for Indian cricket, as we hope that new faces will get the nod and emerge as new stars like first edition where we saw number of youngsters performed really well, but those were mostly batsmen, but now this year we are looking forward to see some new young fast bowlers to show their talent and go ahead. Few young rookie fast bowlers who I am looking forward to see this time around are:

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.

Atul Sharma! Speed sensation! World’s Fastest Bowler!

Are you surprised? I was also surprised when I read the same at a thread at a cricket forum by one of the forum members. After a lot of research, the post seemed to be quite trustworthy. Atul Sharma might be the world’s fastest bowler, the next pace sensation and a very good gift for India.

Atul Sharma has been included in the Rajasthan Royals IPL squad this year as can be found in the IPL official website and he might be the biggest find of IPL season 2 and perhaps India’s biggest fast bowling find in years.

Nobody is sure but let us wait and check out if he really turns out to be sensation in the IPL. This has made me even more eager to watch this year’s IPL and hope he really matches up to the expectations.