IPL Can Mull Over Best Talent Scout Award!

If the IPL, had among a number of awards along with the Orange Cap to the leading run-getter and Purple Cap to the leading wicket-taker, founded the best talent scout award over multiple seasons, it would have been won by John Wright hands down. The former New Zealand opener and a former coach of the Indian team should get the credit for recommending Jasprit Bumrah to Mumbai Indians for the 2013 season after seeing him bowl for Gujarat in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 tournament. Bumrah has to be deemed the find of the IPL and India in the last decade having taken 443 wickets across formats and 165 wickets for the MI. The Ambani family owned MI has a pool of talent scouts — and so do the other nine teams — and this season, the five-time winner introduced three raw talents in left-arm wrist spinner Vignesh Puthur, seamer PVSN Raju, batter Robin Minz for a trial by fire start in the unforgiving world of IPL competition. While Puthur created a buzz in Kerala and across the country, it’s the Punjab left-arm seamer Ashwani Kumar, a tyro in Indian cricket’s domestic tournaments, who demanded compelling attention with his 4 for 24 in the team’s first home match; it was a peach of an effort that won MI its first match of the Tata-IPL-18 against Kolkata Knight Riders. The talent scouts of the 10 franchisees spot talent, travelling to the nook and corners of the country. These are early days for the likes of Puthur and Ashwani, and only a good run in the hectic IPL season can enable them to crash open the doors of the national team.