Yuvraj Singh to captain the Pune Warriors

Yuvraj Singh may have singlehandedly crushed Ireland’s hopes of another upset in Bangalore on Sunday, but he won the hearts of their players for going out of the way to help Niall O’Brien.

The Ireland wicketkeeper lost his kit bag, which had six bats, after the day-night encounter against India. But as soon as Yuvraj heard about Niall’s loss, he came forward to help the Irish star.


“Yuvraj Singh got in touch with us as soon as he heard of Niall’s loss. Not only did he suggest that we should lodge a complaint with the local police so that it would help us in claiming compensation from the insurance company, but also provided Niall a chance to take a look at his own bats,” Ireland team manager Barry Chambers said.

“He asked Niall to pick any of his bats, so that he could play with them till he either got his bats back or the new ones arrived,” Chambers added.

Chambers further informed that Niall had left the bag inside the dressing room along with other kits as per the instructions from the team’s liaison officer.

“Niall, as instructed by the local ICC liaison officer, left his bag containing six cricket bats in the dressing room along with the team baggage to be collected and returned to the hotel. One of his bags was brought back but the second, containing the bats, did not arrive at the team collection point in the hotel,” he said.

Niall was evidently disappointed at the loss and the fact that Suresh Raina gave him one of those bats makes it even more painful.

“As a batsman, bats are our weapons and they are really precious. The loss is definitely unacceptable, but what makes it worse is the fact that one of the six bats was gifted to me by Raina and it was really precious to me.

“I believe that they are missing rather than stolen — with so many luggages being transported all over India and Bangladesh, these things happen. We have also informed the ICC,” Niall said.

YUVRAJ TO LEAD PUNE WARRIORS

Yuvraj Singh was on Tuesday named the captain of Pune Warriors for the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Yuvraj, who is having a good World Cup so far, is one of the four domestic players in the side. The other three are Ashish Nehra, Robin Uthappa and Murali Karthik.

“ The 30 member Sahara’s Pune Warriors squad will be lead by Captain of the team Mr. Yuvraj Singh,” said a Pune Warriors release.

The new franchise also bought 10 foreign players during the auction. Some of the international cricketers include South Africa captain Graeme Smith, Sri Lankan all- rounder Angelo Matthews and New Zealand batsman Jesse Ryder. The major chunk of the 30- member squad comprise 16 uncapped players from the domestic circuit. The IPL 4 kicks off from April 8.

The squad: Domestic capped: Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra, Robin Uthappa and Murali Karthik, Manish Pandey, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Mohnish Mishra, Kamran Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rahul Sharma, Shreekant Wagh, Ganesh Gaikwad, Harshad Khadiwale, Shrikant Mundhe, Sachin Rana, Harpreet Singh, Dheeraj Jadhav, Imtiyaz Ahmad, Mithun Minhas, Eklavya Dwivedi.

Foreign players: Graeme Smith, Angelo Mathews, Tim Paine, Nathan McCullum, Callum Ferguson, Wayne Parnell, Mitchelle Marsh, Jesse Ryder, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas.

Meanwhile, last IPL edition’s finalists Mumbai Indians got new sponsors in Hero Honda Motors Ltd. The Mumbai players will sport Hero Honda logo on the front of their jerseys.

Led by legendary Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai Indians have included explosive Australian allrounder Andrew Symonds and Indian batsman Rohit Sharma in their squad.

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