I dont like Pune the city. 6+ years in that city were good to give me jitters to stay away from the city. But the IPL is back in that city. With its own team. No stadium. The age old Jawaharlal Nehru stadium is pathetic to host any game, be it IPL or a MPL or a club game. The new stadium in Gahunje, between Pune and Mumbai seems not ready to host the game.
Its 50 kms away from the IT park in Hinjewadi, the awful place for traffic jams. Given how bad public transport in Pune is, how many people would have travelled to Gahunje to view the games. So Pune would play all its home games in DY Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai.
Logistics apart, the team is called Sahara Warriors.
And is led by the reborn man of the World Cup, Yuvraj Singh. Its such a joy to see Yuvraj in full flow. And he is very much near the peak he has achieved in 2007-2008 duration. He would be a man brimming with confidence given his exploits in the premier tournament of the world.
He is up against Kings XI, franchisee for which he was icon player for 3 seasons. And they dented his confidence in 2010 when they gave the captaincy to Kumar Sangakara Nanga to end up wooden spoon holders. So he shall have a point to prove against them.
Team composition:
Desi players:
Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra, Uthappa, Wagh, Dheeraj Jadhav, Rahul Sharma, Manish Pandey, Mundhe, Manhas, Kartik, Jhunjhunwala, etc
Foreign Players:
Callum Fergie, Graeme Smith, Nathan McCullum, Angelo Matthews, Tim Paine, Jesse Ryder, Wayne Parnell, Jerome Taylor
The team is decent, the chances for them to go to the semis depends on how the team composition is decided and most importantly on the form of Yuvraj Singh.
The Bhamte and old generation Pune would support Yuvraj as IPL captain? Doubtful. They dont have too many players from Pune except few. Dheeraj Jadhav is one of them followed by Wagh and Khadiwale. The Puneris are a bit averse to the outsiders, so they warming up to the IPL players is a bit doubtful.
