Indian-origin English cricketer Ravi Bopara is 29 and just 15 matches old in the Indian Premier League. And, he is yet to set the stage on fire.
Indian-origin English cricketer Ravi Bopara is 29 and just 15 matches old in the Indian Premier League. And, he is yet to set the stage on fire.
Brought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs 1 crore in the February auction, Bopara has set his eyes on the platform to perform not only for his new team but also to prove himself and England's selectors.
The London-born batsman, who was regarded as one of the highly-rated batsman after he broke into the county cricket scene at the age of 17, has not yet lived up to the talent that he posses.
He would like to shed the notion with the season here. "I am really excited to be part of the IPL and the team Sunrisers Hyderabad. It is my first IPL after some years and an exciting opportunity. I would like to make it really special," Bopara told dna on Wednesday.
Bopara also said he was excited to be a part of the team that possesses some of the best players led by David Warner. "We have a very nice bowling attack (Dale Steyn, Trent Boult, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Karn Sharma, Parvez Rasool) with some variety. They will be the ones who will play an important role and is one of the strengths of our side," he said.
Bopara has played 15 IPL matches, all for Kings XI Punjab, and scored 386 runs at an average of 29.69 with three half-centuries in the 2009 and 2010 season. This is his first IPL season since.
However, now he doesn't want to miss out on the opportunity. "On a personal note, it is a very good opportunity for me since it's a big tournament. I would like to get into the groove immediately," he said.
"However, I have not set myself any goals since I don't know what will be my role yet. Whether I will be batting in the middle or up the order. Once I know I will decide on it. While batting at No. 5, you just get to play around 10 balls where you have to score 25-30 runs. Coming down the order, you have to go for your big shots and don't have the luxury to settle and then go for shots," he said.
Asked where he would like to bat considering he can has both the skills of rotating the strike and going for his shot, he said: "Batting higher up the order will be great since I will get a lot of time," he replied.
After a decent ODI series in Sri Lanka, Bopara failed to impress in the tri-series involving India and hosts Australia. Hence he got just one game in the World Cup. The middle-order batsman now wants to impress his country's selectors considering that the IPL has served as a big platform for many foreign players to make it to their national team.
"I did not have a good tri-series, then got just one game in the World Cup. I would like to play some good knocks here. I want to prove myself to the selectors and show them that I am a better batsman."
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