 Mumbai Indians will be hosted at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium for their second
game of the third edition of the Indian Premier League. The match will be played
on 17th March, 2010 and will be a night game. This will be Delhi's third game
of the tournament.
Feroz Shah Kotla will be hosting their first game of the tournament, and all
the eyes will be on the Kotla more than the teams. And that is saying a lot
given that the match itself will be full of star attractions, with the likes
of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dave Warner,
Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Kieron Pollard on display.
Click Here to Watch Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians Live
However, the reason why the pitch could be a centre of attention is that during
the Champions League T20 which was played in the month of October, was
one of the most crappy ones that one could have had in the format that demands
a lot of free flowing strokeplay. With this Kotla wicket, the things had got
to such a head that the teams batting first could end up scoring 120 batting
first and still expect to get away with the game, victors.
Then, there was that India-Sri Lanka game which had ended in a farce; in the
fifth and the final ODI. The match had to be called off thanks to the awful
nature of the track and that was a big blow for the Delhi ground which has now
been banned from international cricket for a period of one year. Thankfully,
the IPL does not come under the auspices of ICC and hence the games can be played
on this ground. However, that does not mean that that the BCCI will take too
kindly to the fact that the tournament gets marred by a negative publicity surrounding
the pitch.
After all, with the long list of the aforesaid mentioned cricketers, it will
be a travesty of sorts if the pitch does not hold up. The audiences have a golden
chance to get enthralled by the Indian and foreign greats in the game and one
can be sure that there will be many fans in the crowd who would say, "let
Tendulkar and Kieron Pollard smash Delhi and Delhi win in the end"!
Sehwag has given away the captaincy to Gautam Gambhir, and it should
be interesting to see how he goes about in his role as the captain. Gambhir
had not been too good in the CL T20 and will look to improve upon his record
as a skipper.
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