Another England player stars in the IPL today in the form of Michael Lumb. He’s been in really solid form so far for the Rajasthan Royals, but today he finally got himself past the fifty mark for the first time. Lumb smashed 83 off of 43 balls, which included 16 fours and 2 sixes, helping to set up a very straightforward 9 wicket win over the Kings XI Punjab.
He is one of only 8 English players to be in the IPL this year (Kevin Pieterson, Andrew Flintoff, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Eion Morgan and Graeme Napier). When you bear in mind that Lumb has only just been selected for England for the first time, he is doing remarkably well and repaying the selectors faith.
A lot of former professionals believe that the IPL is a poor way upon which to establish the quality of a player and their suitability for international cricket. How can they possible say this say this? It may not be suitable to pick potential future Test Cricket stars, sure. But bear in mind, every one of the ten IPL teams can play 4 of their overseas star players out of about 7 or 8 altogether in their squad. The any new or future International Cricket stars would get to ply their trade against the likes of Brett Lee and Matthew Hayden for example.
In county cricket, both four day and 40/50 over, the English players only get to face one class overseas player per game. The IPL has allowed them to play four times as many, and therefore (I think) gain valuable experience.
Michael Lumb has been able to not only get paid a decent amount of money for doing what he loves, thanks to the massive television coverage he has pushed himself to the forefront of the selectors minds.
Good luck to the lad!
Paul
well in my friends opinion who works at a price per head service company so he knows about sports says that he is a diamond and he will be a super star soon
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