Hello friends,
I am back with yet another edition of sports talk of the month. It's been another month of exciting cricketing actions across the globe. Along with that Indian boxers' performance in the 13th women's world boxing championships was a moment to cherish. As far as cricket is concerned inaugural edition of Women's premier league (WPL) made the major headlines. Another Indian triumph in Border-Gavaskar trophy, Australia's stunning comeback in the one day series, an exciting run fest in the T20I series between South Africa & West Indies were some of the other major cricketing highlights. Let's have a quick look at the top story/s of the month.
Women in charge
It was a long awaited sporting event especially in India as it was anticipated to change the dynamics of women's cricket drastically. Women's premier league has definitely taken a big step forward towards the overall development of women's cricket in India. It was such an exciting beginning to the event. First edition was just a glimpse of what is going to be an even bigger sporting extravaganza in the coming days. Exciting cricket was on offer from all the five teams. Though it has been a trimmed edition compared to IPL but there was no dearth of excitement. Teams were all geared up for giving their best in the very first attempt. But eventually there is going to be only one champion and this time it was the turn of mighty Mumbaikars to lift the trophy.
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| Image Credit: flickr.com/BMN Network |
Mumbai Indians definitely were the team to beat throughout the tournament. A team built with the right mix of experience & young talent had all the ingredients to be the champions. A major factor for their dominance throughout the tournament has been the captaincy of Harmanpreet Kaur. Being a successful national team captain for a while helped her to bring that confidence in leading a team of domestic talents as well as foreign recruits. She was extremely aggressive be it in her batting or captaincy from the word go. Five consecutive wins in the league phase gave them the much needed momentum to go all the way. Harman's captaincy was accurate in terms of player selection, field placement, bowling changes & overall strategy making. Disappointment of not winning any major trophies as a captain so far would have reduced a bit for her after the win in WPL. She will definitely try to emulate the success of her male counterparts in the coming seasons.
The natural leader in Smith
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| Image Credit: Computerishere88, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Leadership is natural more often than not. A natural leader can take charge of the situation at any point of time without much of a hussle. Steve Smith is one such leader who has been extremely successful in his early days as Australian captain due to his natural instinct. His leadership qualities again became the talk of the town recently when he had to take up the captaincy role mid series in the absence of Pat Cummins. His captaincy turned the wheels in favour of his team who could avoid an even more embarrassing result in the test series. Victory in the one day series is a testament to his natural leadership. Though he was not at his best as a batter throughout the tour, his ability to lead aggressively brought fruitful results for his team. He was never seen running short of ideas specially during the crunch times. Though he is expected to continue his duty as the vice captain once Cummins returns his leadership acumen is going to be a big factor for his team this year when big tournaments like Ashes & ODI world cup comes up.
That's it for this month. Looking forward to come back next month with exciting actions from IPL. Stay tuned for more at this space.
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