Kings XI Punjab coach Tom Moody knows first-hand how passionate India’s cricket fans were about the inaugural Indian Premier League tournament.
And the Australian believes there’s a “lot of intrigue” among local fans about the second version of the Twenty20 tournament to be played in South Africa after organisers made the late switch from India for security reasons.

Moody, who coached Sri Lanka to the 2007 World Cup final, has assembled a strong line-up to represent Punjab including Sri Lankan stars Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene for the tournament starting this weekend.

But some of his Australian players such as Brett Lee, James Hopes and Shaun Marsh are only expected to be available for the last two weeks after touring with Australia to Dubai for the one-day series against Pakistan.

Elsewhere the Australian flavour is evident across all eight franchises, including five Australian coaches – Moody, Delhi’s Greg Shipperd, Kolkata’s John Buchanan, his opposite in coaching philosophy, Rajasthan Royals captain-coach Shane Warne and Deccan’s Darren Lehmann.

Warne admits his team’s title defence will suffer through having last year’s player of the tournament Shane Watson on national duties in Dubai.

While Moody says it’s very hard to pick a winner this year given the way top players will float in and out of their franchise teams, the reaction of the cricket public is also tough to predict.

It’s believed several teams were keen to play as many games in Durban as possible given the large Indian population in the beachside city.

Hulking Queenslander Matthew Hayden has already been surfing Durban’s warm waters in preparation for his campaign with the Chennai Super Kings.

They’ll be captained by India’s M.S. Dhoni, which won’t hurt Chennai’s attempts to win over Durban fans.

“It’s going to be interesting,” Moody said at the Kings XI team’s training base in Port Elizabeth this week.

“We play six games in Durban, a large percentage of our games in an area where it’s heavily populated by an Asian community.

“We’ve picked up (left-arm quick) Yusuf Abdulla who’s from Durban and has an Asian heritage -we may get a connection with the Durban fans through that.

“Particularly in places like Durban there’s going to be a strong following and I think there’s a lot of intrigue out there too – It has really captured people’s imagination.”

Moody, the Western Australia state coach, is proud to be part of Australia’s colonisation of the cricketing world, as shown by the country’s off-field dominance in the IPL.

“That has been a bit of a trend over the last decade or so in world cricket,” Moody says.

“We’ve seen a lot of Aussie coaches in international positions.

“I was in Sri Lanka, John Dyson is in the West Indies, Greg Chappell was in India (and Geoff Lawson was in Pakistan).

“There has been a lot of Australian influence in coaching and I think that goes with the success of the Australian cricket team over the past two decades.”

The IPL claim tickets for Saturday’s opening double-header in Cape Town between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, and Rajasthan Royals versus Royal Challengers Bangalore, were sold out within hours of going on sale.

“In South Africa, I think there’s a lot of intrigue just purely in the cricket and how suddenly all these international cricketers are coming into one competition,” Moody added.

“It’s not a World Cup, it’s not anything of that nature. But it’s a unique format to be enjoyed.”
Source – foxsports.com.au