He has all types of shots’: Gautam Gambhir names the youngster he’s eager to see perform in IPL 2020
The IPL, over the years, has become a wonderful platform to help take off careers. Look no further than Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, who started off as youngsters for Mumbai Indians and then transformed themselves into star performers. That said, the IPL has also resurrected careers of international players, case in point being Andre Russell and Sunil Narine of West Indies, whose T20 stocks grew with the success they achieved while playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Gautam Gambhir knows talent when he sees one, and while he has named certain players to watch out for in the 13th edition of the IPL, the former India opening batsman has one more name in mind; a promising youngster from West Indies, who has been deemed the next big thing in Windies cricket by none other than Chris Gayle: the dynamic left-handed batsman Nicholas Pooran, who will be playing for the Kings XI Punjab.
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In fact, Gambhir is so impressed with the 24-year-old batsman that he mentioned Pooran and AB de Villiers in the same sentence and backed the Windies batsman to play shots all around the ground. Gambhir feels a player of Pooran’s calibre should blossom under the leadership of Anil Kumble, who is serving as KXIP’s coach this year.
“For me, Nicholas Pooran is the young player I would like to watch in this IPL. We talk about AB de Villiers as a 360-degree player but Nicholas Pooran has all types of shots. He can play the reverse sweep, normal sweep and is capable of playing the big shots,” Gambhir said during a discussion on Star Sports’ chat show Cricket Connected.
“So, such a player, when he plays under a coach like Anil Kumble, I have full confidence that Anil Kumble will be able to extract the best out of him. A great coach, who had won Mumbai Indians the title, I would want to see what he can do with the Kings XI.”
Another former cricketer who is high on praise for Pooran is New Zealand’s Scott Styris. Styris reckons that in order for KXIP to be able to utilise Pooran’s talent to the fullest, the management needs to be smart in its approach and make the youngster bat up the order.
“Players like Nicholas Pooran, who we have seen in the IPL, need to have bigger roles for their side. I think for Kings XI Punjab to have a big tournament, he needs to be given real responsibility,” Styris said. “He needs to be moved up, not quite to the top of the order but certainly given a majority of the deliveries in the innings.”
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