Shane Watson sweated it out in the heat and put himself through a rigorous test in order to ascertain whether he would be fit to lead Rajasthan Royals against Chennai Super Kings at the Motera ground here on Sunday.
The Australian all-rounder batted for a little over an hour and bowled for over 20 minutes, and indications are that he will play his first match of this IPL season.
Team mentor Rahul Dravid and coach Paddy Upton gave special attention to one of the six nets where Watson and Steve Smith were in action. And those bowling to Watson included James Faulkner.
Should Watson declare himself available, Chris Morris may have to make way.
At the pre-match press conference, Tim Southee said: “I think he trained the last couple of days, so we’ll have to wait and see. Watson has been a key player for Royals over a number of years, so he will only add value to an already really strong side.”
About the match against Super Kings, Southee said: “It should be a good game. Both teams are playing some good cricket, and haven’t lost a game so far in the tournament. The previous results don’t matter. It’s different conditions, and there are different personnel in the sides now. I think it’ll be a completely different game tomorrow. But it should be a good one.”
Southee could find himself engaged in a duel with his New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum. Does he fancy his chances? “We’ll wait and see. It’ll be a good one to get, but he’s obviously in good form, and he has played some good cricket, not only in the IPL but during the World Cup and before that. He’ll be hard to stop, but I’m sure we’ll try and come up with plans to grab him early.”
How does he rate CSK? “They’re a very good side, they’ve got some good batters, not only at the top but all the way through. We’ll have to come up with some plans to try and minimise the damage early on,” he said.
“Obviously, McCullum comes very hard early on. But it’s not only he, Dwayne Smith as well. He’s a very dangerous player. We’ve got the footage and what not, and we’ll look at it, try and come up with some plans to take early wickets.”
When asked about the kind of adjustments he has had to make for Twenty20, and the IPL in particular, Southee said: “With the wickets being pretty good, the batsmen are hitting the ball farther and playing a lot more shots. So the bowlers have to adapt and become more skilful, and I think that means using more variations and having a different skill set.
“I think you see nowadays the bowlers bowling a lot of variations, a lot of different types of variations. They are picking up the slower ones. When a batsman is going after the bowlers, it creates a lot of chances as well.”
