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Sandeep Lamichhane should have replaced Glenn Maxwell in the Delhi Daredevils squad

Glenn Maxwell has a different path to the Test side than Matt Hayden ever did. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Roar Guru
23rd May, 2018
0

The Delhi Daredevils had a season to forget, failing to make the playoffs again despite having big names in their ranks such as Gautam Gambhir, Ricky Ponting, Glenn Maxwell and Colin Munro.

The season’s first half was disastrous for them as they could only muster one win out of six matches, before Gambhir decided to step down and hand over the captaincy to Shreyas Iyer.

Though the Daredevils did decently in the second half, the selection of Maxwell – despite continuous failure – did raise eyebrows.

In 12 innings he scored 169 runs, with a best of 47, proving him to be one of the biggest flops of the season.
The fact Maxwell was continuously given chances to make amends for poor runs proved costly for Delhi.

Replacing Maxwell with Nepalese teenager Sandeep Lamichhane was the option Delhi could have gone with.

In his first match against the Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore, he bowled well for figures of 1/25 in four overs.

Sandeep would have had loads of nerves in his first match, but Iyer tossed the ball to him the first over – not giving him the space to even feel the nerves.

Lamichhane kept opening pair of Parthiv Patel and Moeen Ali in check by conceding just two runs in his first over. At the other end, Trent Boult jolted RCB by removing Moeen, which brought Kohli out to the middle.

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Lamichhane’s second over began with a dot to Kohli, followed by a single. Patel smashed the third ball down the ground for four but Lamichhane didn’t flutter, with his next ball trapping Parthiv LBW to send him packing.

If he was calm, then that could have been the calm before the storm as AB de Villiers made way to the crease. A good player of spin who’s not afraid to dance down to spinners and dispatch it for four or six must definitely have worried Lamichhane, but his next delivery was a googly and De Villiers missed it for a huge shout.

Though his next two overs went for 18 runs after conceding seven runs in first two overs, against Kohli, Lamichhane gave away just nine runs from eight balls. Against De Villiers, he gave away ten from eight deliveries.

In the next match, he held his nerves against Hardik Pandya as he grabbed three wickets and Delhi won, comfortably beating the Mumbai Indians, which really should make the Daredevils management think they were wrong bringing Sandeep so late in the tournament when they had nothing but pride to play for.

The kind of success spinners such as Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Shakib Al Hasan and Ravichandran Ashwin definitely should be thought of by Daredevils management as to why they held Lamichhane so late in the tournament.

In fact, Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Kane Williamson even had a three-man spin attack of Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Shakib Al Hasan against Mumbai in a winning cause.

When you consider the views of two-time World Cup winning captain Darren Sammy, in that Australian coaches are playing favourites with Aussie players, it does raise serious doubt about the professionalism of the coaches who are brought on board to deliver winning performances – whether that includes Aussies or not.

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Taking into consideration all these, one does feel the Daredevils missed a trick or two.

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