Mumbai Indians’ Kieron Pollard and Parthiv Patel are all set to join the IPL ‘100-match club’ when they play Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) here on Thursday. While it will be the 100th match for a single franchise for the 28-year-old Trinidadian, bought at well over $1 million before IPL-3, Parthiv has been part of six franchises.
Pollard would have reached this particular milestone had he not missed the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad because of food poisoning. Pollard has missed 20 matches for the team in blue and silver stripes after his selection in the third year of the trailblazing competition.
Leading in to this edition, Pollard was not in touch with the game with rehabilitation forcing him to take a long break. Playing for Cape Cobras in the South African Ram Slam T20 in November 2015, Pollard was rendered hors de combat because of a knee injury. The sprightly all-rounder was forced to miss the Big Bash League for Adelaide Strikers in Australia and most importantly, the ICC World Twenty20 in India.
After missing the match at Hyderabad, skipper Rohit Sharma dispelled any notions of Pollard not being considered when MI returned home for the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Pollard dug in his heels to make an unbeaten 39.
For someone who has caught the attention with his spectacular big hitting (78x4, 76x6) and catching and fielding in the deep, Pollard, who has featured in 59 MI wins, is deemed a permanent fixture.
Pollard is all set to join Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Harbhajan Singh and Ambati Rayudu as those who have played their first 100 matches for a single franchise.
Kohli has played 128 matches for RCB (62 wins), Dhoni 129 matches for Chennai Super Kings (78 wins), Raina 132 matches for CSK (79 wins), Harbhajan Singh 118 matches for MI (67 wins) and Rayudu 103 matches for MI (62 wins).
The fact that Dhoni and Raina have been forced to play for another franchise after a long run with CSK may have bugged them, but circumstances caused by the folly one of the CSK representative made it an inevitable happening.
Rising Pune Supergiants’ off-spinner R. Ashwin (102 matches), formerly of CSK, has completed 100 matches in this edition as have leg-spinner Delhi Daredevils’ Amit Mishra (102), Gujarat Lions’ Praveen Kumar (102) and Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Shikhar Dhawan (101).
While Dwayne Bravo (96), Irfan Pathan (99) and Yuvraj Singh (98) are also closing in on the mark, KKR coach Jacques Kallis’s IPL career halted at 99 and S. Badrinath’s CSK count stands at 95.
The 100-match club(as on April 25): Suresh Raina 137, Rohit Sharma 135, M.S. Dhoni 134, Virat Kohli 128, Dinesh Karthik 127, Robin Uthappa 125, Yusuf Pathan 124, Gautam Gambhir 122, Harbhajan Singh 118, Piyush Chawla 116, Ravindra Jadeja 115, A.B. de Villiers 109, Virender Sehwag 104, Ambati Rayudu 103, Praveen Kumar 102, Amit Mishra 102, Ravichandran Ashwin 102, Shikhar Dhawan 101 and Vinay Kumar 100.
