After a disastrous time trying to predict Bangalore, I seem to have done better in terms of Delhi. I seem to have got that mostly right. The article also talks of TM Srivastava, but I’d considered him and then left him out in favour of Shikhar Dhawan after I found Delhi has the requisite quota of youngsters.
Coming to Mohali now. Preity Zinta had said in an interview with the guardian that she didn’t have much of a clue regarding her team’s selection. Nevertheless, Mohali appears to be an extremely well chosen team. Here is my idea of their starting line-up.
1. Turuwar Kohli (who, according to Abdurrahim Khankhana, doesn’t eat fruit)
2. Karan Goel
3. Kumar Sangakkara
4. Mahela Jayawardene
5. Ramnaresh Sarwan
6. Yuvraj Singh.
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Piyush Chawla
9. Brett Lee
10. VRV Singh
11. Sreesanth
Bench:
12. Simon Katich
13. Ramesh Powar
14. Uday Kaul
15. Vikramjeet Malik
16. has to be a young (U-22) Indian slogger. maybe needs to be poached from outside the zone.
Another option would be to replace Vikramjeet Malik by Siddharth Kaul (who is U-22) so that there’s no age restriction on the other specialist slogger. Also, the “local” quota is filled, so this slogger can be from anywhere. Don’t have that much of an idea right now.
I expect Mohali to prepare a quick and bouncy track, which can be exploited well by their four-pronged pace attack. They have a well-qualified batting line-up which will be able to take on the best of bowling attacks on a fast pitch. While playing away, on slower surfaces, they may drop VRV in favor of Powar.