Kulkarni will be leading Aakash Tigers Mumbai Western Suburbs in the upcoming edition of the local T20 league
Having just finished his Indian Premier League (IPL) assignment for Rajasthan Royals, pacer Dhawal Kulkarni has started his preparations for the forthcoming Mumbai T20 League.
Kulkarni will be leading Aakash Tigers Mumbai Western Suburbs in the upcoming edition of the local T20 league.
After a training session at MCA’s facility at Bandra-Kurla Complex on Friday, Kulkarni said he is relaxed as there won’t be any non-stop travel like in IPL.
“I feel it won’t be that tiring (like IPL). It won’t be like travelling from one place to another, more over for the first time I will be playing in this league and I’m looking forward to it. I feel it has been a long season of IPL. I wanted to play Mumbai T20,” Kulkarni said.
“It is my first season as last year I was injured and didn’t play. It’s quite exciting for me to be a part of Mumbai T20 League, which we all wanted to happen long back but luckily, it happened last year. And the response that this league got was phenomenal,” the right arm pacer added.
In the recent IPL, the 30-year-old took six wickets from 10 matches.
“It was a positive and great season,” said Kulkarni. “May not be in terms of numbers but the way I have bowled was important for me.”
Kulkarni said he made minor adjustments to his bowling. “Earlier, I used to run in a bit slow, but Steffan Jones (RR fast bowling coach) asked me to run a bit faster as I have a semi open action, which needs a bit of pace in run up and that’s what I practised in the nets. And these changes worked,” he said.
Ajinkya Rahane had a disappointing IPL season as captain of Rajasthan Royals before Steve Smith took over. However, they could not make it to the playoffs. Asked to compare the captaincy of the two players, Kulkarni said it would be unfair to do so.
“I have played more under Ajinkya (in U-17s and U-19s) than Smith. I have hardly played under Smith (just one game). There wasn’t much of a difference. We could not capitalise on the smaller moments. That was the difference, if we would have won those crunch situations, things would be different. They were equally good.”
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 "Dhawal Kulkarni")
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