iSporter Issac John ponders over rookie Kemar Roach's purchase by his favourite team, Deccan Chargers. Can Kemar Roach help the Deccan Chargers retain their IPL title?
For any tournament, the defending champions are always under scrutiny. In cricket, nobody’s managed the spotlight better than Australia and it might help that in Gilly, Deccan Chargers have someone who’s won the World Cup three times in a row.
But the one thing that must be rankling Gilly even before the tournament starts is how his new recruit Kemar Roach is going to hold up in a country he’s never played before. More so because he is filling the shoes of Fidel Edwards, someone who made an enormous impact in the opening games for Deccan Chargers in 2009. The good thing about Roach is that he is an unknown commodity in international cricket and batsmen will take time to come to terms with his pace and repertoire. The bad thing about what I’ve just said is that an “unknown commodity” in international cricket also means a lack of experience.
Roach made his test debut during an extremely tumultuous time for West Indian cricket. In his first series, while he made people take notice of his pace and performed creditably with a decent haul in the series, he also saw for himself a 2-0 WI humiliation against Bangladesh. Thereafter he saw Australia beat West Indies 2-0 in a three match face-off. In many ways, if his test career start is anything to go by, it’s been a baptism of fire of sorts.
Roach’s accomplishments so far have been too few to enlist. Fans will be reminded of how he deceived Ponting with his pace and forced him to retire hurt once. For a rookie to do that against the best batsman of pace bowling in recent times is quite something. He once also spliced up Watson’s stumps in an ODI first ball. On his T20 debut he ended up with 2-26 in a T20 game against Australia. Those turned out to be the best figures in the match. But in 2 subsequent games again against Australia, he gave away 33 and 30 in 2 overs in a 2 game series that Australia again won comfortably. Evidently, there’s little to suggest whether he’ll come a cropper or a winner but what’s caught everyone’s attention is the fact that he can consistently bowl at speeds above 150 kmph. Now that should be interesting to watch and makes him an exciting prospect for DC.
For Gilly, playing Roach is going to be a double-edged sword. For out of the 4 foreign players, he can draft in the side, Gilchrist and Symonds select themselves. DC isn’t going to play any match without these two in the side. And then Gilly will decide two players between Vaas, Smith, Gibbs and Roach. To draft Roach ahead of Vaas and Smith will be a big call for DC and I suspect they will draft Roach in the opening two games to see how he is holding up. In a 14 match campaign, its better to take the risks in the opening games than leave it for late.
DC traditionally has always been a good batting side. The thorn in their flesh – that got particularly exposed in Season I has been their bowling. RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha will spearhead the attack but will need tremendous support from at least 2 more bowlers. Last season, the part-timers came in handy and so did Harris, Harmeet, Smith and Edwards in different games. To an extent, DC got lucky with their bowling last time around. But this time, without fiery Fidel, DC desperately need one of Vaas or Roach to fire. The team has not yet reaped dividends on the investment made on wily Vaas in the past and hence they thought it best to spend US$720,000 on a rookie like Roach.
Investors sometimes can be made to look like idiots or geniuses depending upon the returns their stock picks generate. When KKR spent an astronomical sum on Mortaza, it was the former. If DC has got their selection right, they’ll have a shot at calling themselves the latter.
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