Vin­ode Mam­chan

In­di­an bat­ting leg­end Sunil Gavaskar says that T&T and Mum­bai In­di­ans all­rounder Ke­iron Pol­lard has failed to be con­sis­tent enough for the Mum­bai In­di­ans in the In­di­an Pre­mier League and the Nokia Cham­pi­ons League T20. Gavaskar said: "Pol­lard will give you one big in­nings and then every­thing is for­got­ten. How­ev­er, can you tell me how of­ten he pro­duces a big in­nings. Every­one knows that he has a rep­u­ta­tion for tak­ing an at­tack apart and I don't doubt that he can do that but you can­not de­pend on him to do that of­ten."

Gavaskar con­tin­ued: "Pol­lard is a vic­tim of his own rep­u­ta­tion. He can­not on a reg­u­lar ba­sis give you runs and he needs to work on this. As I said be­fore one big in­nings and then noth­ing for a while. You need him to be putting to­geth­er quick part­ner­ships with oth­er guys but this is not hap­pen­ing reg­u­lar enough. I can­not re­al­ly re­call him tak­ing his team to vic­to­ry by play­ing those big knocks." The for­mer open­er added: "You don't see Pol­lard fea­tur­ing in 100-run part­ner­ships for any of his teams and this an in­di­ca­tion of his in­con­sis­ten­cy."

Mean­while, Pol­lard found favour with for­mer South African and Aus­tralia bats­man Ke­pler Wes­sels. He said Pol­lard is unique in that he has mas­tered the bowl­ing of many at­tacks around the world and he is an as­set to any team.

"I think Pol­lard has re­al­ly mas­tered the art of beat­ing the bowlers in this T20 crick­et for­mat. He trav­els the world and play his crick­et and he has played for four teams that are cur­rent­ly in the Nokia Cham­pi­ons League fi­nals. One hopes he can re­pro­duce that kind of per­for­mance to take the West In­dies to a fi­nals." Of the cur­rent teams play­ing in the Cham­pi­ons League, Pol­lard has rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go, Mum­bai In­di­ans, South Aus­tralia Red­backs and Som­er­set.