Chepauk Super Gillies raring to go

But that does not deter the team at all, as it has been playing some form of cricket or the other in the last few months. Badani said Super Gillies would try to better its last year’s performance when it finished second to Tuti Patriots. 

“Every team wants to win the tournament. In fact, winning is not everything. At the end of it, you want to play good cricket,” said the former Indian  international. Badani feels the Chepauk Super Gillies is a well-balanced side. “We have a decent pace attack with Ashwath Mukunthan, Anthony Dhas, Tamil Kumaran and Yo Mahesh. The batting is also quite strong with H Gopinath, Thalaivan Sargunam and captain R Sathish at the top,” the coach added. 

Badani said there is a lot of talent in Tamil Nadu but it is important the promising players get the right channels to come through. The Super Gillies has more or less the same team with only two new additions in Radhakrishnan who is away with the Indian under-19 team that is playing a Test series in England and R Suthesh, a leftarm medium-pacer. 

On TNPL Season 2 having more matches in the districts, Badani said he would like to see a future India star emerging from interior Tamil Nadu. “If I am not mistaken, Venkatramana was the only player to come from the districts and play for India. You never know, there may be an India player waiting in the wings and he could emerge from the TNPL” the CSG coach said. 

Chepauk Super Gillies captain R Sathish was particularly impressed with Suthesh. “Apart from T Natarajan of Dindigul Dragons, he is the only left-arm paceman in the TNPL. He had played for RCB. He is  a handy customer,” said the CSG captain. 

The team has many left-arm spinners (Sai Kishore, Alexander. Arun Kumar) and an off-spinner (Joel Joseph). Sathish admitted there was some confusion in the inaugural edition on what to expect. “But it was amazing to see the crowd in the districts. 

In this edition, all the teams have done their homework. Every team has analysed the others on video. It is going to be highly competitive this time around,” signed off the CSG captain.