CHENNAI: VIDA Kovai Kings, one of the top teams in the Tamil Nadu Premier League that is led by the charismatic Shahrukh Khan, unveiled their jersey at a glittering function on Tuesday. Tamil Nadu Human Resources minister D Sarathkumar was the chief guest and unveiled the jersey and lead sponsor Vida in the presence of TJ Srinivasaraj, president of the TNCA and Anantha Karthikeyan the team owner.
"All the teams have begun practising for the TNPL and it would be an exciting tournament. If you see all the teams and look at the composition, they are more or less equally balanced and we expect a good fight from all the teams till the finish," Srinivasaraj told this daily.
Shahrukh Khan was confident of a good show by his team. "The composition of the team is good. I always wanted to pick a young team and we have done that this year as well. It's a new face to the franchise with new owners and we all feel that we have a team which can do well. You see, the one thing that we can do is get the team to qualify (playoffs). After that, it's just one game a day. That day, whatever happens, no matter how good the team you are, in a knockout game, you can't do much, put your best effort," pointed out Shahrukh Khan, who has won the title twice.
"I feel the core group has changed now in the last two years. Before that, we had similar players. Obviously, the big auction, the auction dynamics, everything changed. But you can't help it after a point in time. It's important that we understand what's important for the game and do what's important at that point in time. That core group has changed. It's important that we build another core group," he added.
Kovai has a lot of variety in their attack right from the experienced M Siddharth, CV Achyuth, to RS Ambrish and S Jhathavedh. "We have Ambrish who is a very good bowling all-rounder. Among new recruits we have Abhinav Kannan. There is Madhava Prasad. It is good to have people from U19s to come and play. They have seen the pressure. Obviously, this (TNPL) pressure is a bit more than what it is there. But still, these guys will respond well to any situation that's given to them," the skipper explained.
Shahrukh Khan believes that he will take things as they come and does not want to set a target for himself. "I'm somebody who bats a little lower down the order. I should only look to play situations and handle situations better," he said, adding that his team has a lot of all-round options where the bowlers too can bat.
On the status of B Sai Sudharsan who is undergoing rehab at the CoE for a niggle, Head of operations Senthil of the Kovai team informed: "Sai is at the NCA having rehab for injury. From there he will go to Sri Lanka, so he will not be available for us."
