Meet MI's New Mentor

Skippy Shaun will be back this season in a new avtaar! He will be the Mumbai Indians' new mentor-cum-advisor. He'll be working along with Lalchand Rajput, Jonty Rhodes and the other support staff.

The Mukesh Ambani owned franchisee has offered him a flexible contract. Last year, after Pollock said that he would no longer be playing competitive cricket, his return to the Mumbai outfit was in doubt. "My role has evolved into that of an advisor and a mentor after the management approached me with a flexible offer", said the South African. The new contract is believed to be of a similar amount ($550,000) for which he was originally signed.

Pollock said that he would never consider himself as a coach but said that he would be passing on his skills and knowledge about the game to the MI youngsters. His performance in IPL 2008 speaks for itself. In 13 matches he took 11 wickets with best figures of 3-12 at an average of 13.33 and scored 147 runs at a brisk rate of 132.43.

The South African all-rounder believes that the Mumbai Indians have the raw ingredients to be a highly successful franchise. "Obviously we're aiming to win the tournament" he said.

Pollock was believed to have been kept in the loop by the highest officials of the MI Management. Infact he is said to have been on conference call with the team officials during the Goa IPL Auction this year along with Sachin Tendulkar and Jayasuriya. Pollock is very excited about the new recruits to the team, especially young JP Duminy. He said that a good blend of youth and experience will be of great advantage to the team.

Looking forward to your new role Shaun!

New Image: Player Performance Tracker: New Zealand v India Series Review

Player Tracker: New Zealand vs India ODI Series Review

After an unarguable thrashing in the first T20 game and a nail biter in the second, the World Champions’ tour of New Zealand didn’t exactly start off on the right foot. Even though there were some strong performances, India still had their backs against the wall. The unsavoury taste of the 2002-03 series was coming back like a piece of garlic stuck in between the teeth.


With the One Day Internationals and Test series still to fight for, India were looking to make amends, realizing that at no point of time was this to be a walk in the park. The batsmen had still failed to come to terms with the pitches and conditions and knew they were dealing with a tenacious opponent that was keen in exploiting the home advantage.


But as soon the ODIs began, fortunes began to swing in favour of India. Kiwi skipper, Daniel Vettori, had lost his first toss of the tour and from the word go, Virender Sehwag, who walked out alongside Mumbai Indians captain Sachin Tendulkar, began pouring water over the opposition’s plans.


The weather came in to play spoil sport, soon cutting the first fifty over game to 38 overs a side. But after a second rain disruption New Zealand made 162 for nine chasing a revised target of 216 in 28 overs. The bad weather continued through the second match and although it was washed out, it was far from irrelevant. Sachin found his feet and form as he scored a brisk 61 before getting out while trying to up the tempo. This was only a prelude of what he was to dish out in the 3rd game- his first century in New Zealand, a dazzling one at that. The master blaster scored 163 in 137 balls and the country of New Zealand went from raining cats and dogs to raining sixes. We were hoping to see the world’s first double hundred in the 50 over format but an old injury began to act up and a struggling Tendulkar retired hurt. With the teams amassing a total 726 runs, the tie broke the world record for most sixes in a one day international. Kyle Mill put in a fantastic all round


Cutting the remaining two matches short as well, the gloomy conditions seemed a lot like the kiwi dressing room. India walked through the 4th match with some sublime performances and a clean sweep seemed inevitable. But the black caps did manage to salvage some pride in the last and final match that took place today. India’s performance on the day seemed shoddy in comparison to New Zealand’s who had a comprehensive 8-wicket consolation victory.


All in all, India was the better side and deserving winners of the trophy, their first series win in New Zealand for almost five decades. Kudos to the Indian squad.

Record sponsorships and Stadium Deals.

The Mumbai Indians is close to finalising a record sponsorship deal with Idea Cellular worth between $2 and 3 million.

"We have almost finalised the deal. It's the biggest in IPL (so far)," a spokesperson for Mumbai Indians told PTI.

The MI spokesperson said that the deal, if and when signed, would be worth $two million for preliminary matches played by the team and would rise to $three million for the semi finals and final in case the team progresses that far.

However, a spokesperson for Idea said it was too early to give details about the proposed deal with Mumbai Indians.

"We are still at the negotiation stage and it's premature to talk about figures", he said.

Meanwhile, the Reliance Industries-owned IPL team is continuing its negotiations with the Cricket Club of India to play all its home matches at the Brabourne Stadium, the MI spokesperson explained.

"We are still in talks with the CCI authorities and the response has been quite positive. We don't want to say anything more at this juncture", he said.

If the talks are successful, MI would play all their seven home matches at the Brabourne Stadium in South Mumbai.

In 2008 we were traveling to either the Wankhede Stadium or D Y Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai to catch the games.

What worries us is, if the deal with Brabourne does go through, whether the stadium with a capacity of 20,000 people is enough to support our entire match going paltan, considering it was brimming at Wankhede that can seat 45,000 people. (Tell us what you think in our poll for the week).

Whatever be the result of those discussions, the CCI owned stadium will be hosting the opening match of the Indian Premier League between the Rajasthan Royals and the Delhi Daredevils, which was originally to be held in Jaipur.

Sri Lankan Cricket Team attacked in Pakistan, IPL dates will change.

Usually we would not write about something that doesn't directly concern the Mumbai Indians but today is different. We are appalled by the occurrences that took place in Lahore today. For those who haven’t already heard, about 12 unidentified gunmen, opened fire on the bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricketers to the Gaddafi stadium. Thilan Samaraweera, Kumar Sangakkara (Punjab Kings XI), Ajantha Mendis (Kolkata Knight Riders), Mahela Jayawardene (Punjab Kings XI), Tharanga Paranavithana and Chaminda Vaas (Deccan Chargers) were injured in the firing. It is also rumoured that a grenade was rolled under the bus but it did not go off.

It was not long ago that our editorial team was discussing the brevity of the Sri Lankan squad in touring Pakistan, even though the country is in such turmoil. Sri Lanka had given the Pakistani government a chance to earn a glint of redemption after the Mumbai siege on 26/11. The team and management jointly decided that they would tour Pakistan if their government would provide adequate security. Pakistan agreed and when no other team in the world wanted to play in the country, due to security concerns, Sri Lanka toured as ambassadors of goodwill, a decision that they are probably regretting in hindsight.

People would like to believe that sports and politics are not intertwined; that cricketers are not under a security threat, but turn the clock back to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, where members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually murdered by a militant group known as Black September, which had ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization. By the end of the ordeal, the terrorist group had killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches and one German police officer. It was also believed the West Germany themselves had a hand in the attack. This is the second example that proves how untrue this belief is.


In countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where people hold cricket so close to their hearts that it is considered a religion, attacking cricketers means attacking our faith. It hurts me to say this but it was only a matter of time before something like this happened and it will inevitably happen again especially in a country like Pakistan that claims to be fighting terror while underhandedly nurturing terrorist networks, which have now turned on them. Therefore I do not believe that Pakistan is capable of jointly hosting the forthcoming Cricket World Cup.

In terms of the IPL, there were worries that if the second season does not happen during the stipulated period then it will not happen at all this year. Lalit Modi, commissioner of the IPL, stated that, “the management does not expect the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore to impact the second edition of the tournament. There are a few dates which will change due to the general elections and a few of the games will be shifted around. But we will get under way on April 10th. Modi claimed the IPL security team had visualised every conceivable mode of attack and prepared for them.

Our sympathies are with the Sri Lankan team.