Jennings wants Royal Challengers to play good cricket in IPL Season V

Within hours of landing in Bangalore on Tuesday morning, South African Ray Jennings got the RCB boys for a light training session at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), writes The Times Of India. Sharing his views on different aspects of the team, Jennings said his immediate focus was to get the boys together as a unit, ahead of the IPL beginning April 5.

“This is not really a camp. It is just the starting process to the IPL. It is matter of gearing the guys up with the right intensity for the tournament, to make sure we know the injury factors, fitness levels and skill levels. To make sure by the end of a week or ten days that we know each other, we are a happy unit and then we can go out and enjoy ourselves,” he said, speaking to TOI.

According to a report in The Hindu, catching up with teammates and limbering up for sterner tests ahead were the primary themes of the Royal Challengers Bangalore's preparatory camp for the Indian Premier League which commenced at the KSCA ‘B' ground here on Tuesday. The training schedule's inaugural session featured mainly RCB's Karnataka contingent along with Saurabh Tiwary and Cheteshwar Pujara. The players warmed-up and did the shuttle run with trainer S. Basu monitoring the proceedings.

Jennings is not concerned about winning the title as much as he wants his team to play well, set goals and pursue them. “I think it is not about being close (to the title). It is about playing good cricket. If I can set some goals, I want the side to be happy. I want the side to play good cricket,” he says.

Meanwhile Dlip Vengsarkar ex-India captain & former chief selector, is of the opinion that T20 does affect a junior cricketer's game. “It has a negative effect on the shot development of batsmen in particular, and on the skills as a whole. In the longer versions, temperament, mental toughness and concentration are necessary, which a player might not develop playing the shortest version,” says Vengsarkar, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

Shakib Al Hasan, the hero of Bangladesh in the recently concluded Asia Cup, feels that Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have the arsenal to make it to the final this time. The Bangladesh all-rounder, who represents the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), in an interview to The Times Of India, said that their target this year would be the final. “We have the arsenal to go that far. We made silly errors here and there that eventually stalled our progress. But, hopefully, we won't repeat the same mistakes and carry on the momentum,” he said.

Speaking on Bangladesh's secret behind the new-found self-belief, Shakib said that for the last two-and-a-half-years they have been thinking that we have the ability to beat stronger teams but always failed somewhere or the other. “We weren't clicking as a team. Only two or three players were performing. But what happened in Asia Cup saw a complete transformation. Six or seven players performed consistently - two or three with the ball and three-four players with the bat every time. So, that was the most important thing behind our journey to the Asia Cup final.”