Umar and Raza will beef up our batting: Astle

AHMEDABAD: Mumbai Champs have not had a very good season in the Indian Cricket League so far but their skipper Nathan Astle is hopeful of a better showing in the third edition of the tournament.
"The inclusion of Taufiq Umar and Hasan Raza should bolster our batting," the former New Zealand batsman said after his squad had a rigorous practice session on Sunday at the Sardar Patel stadium in Navrangpura which is being refurbished at a cost of Rs 10 crore for the ICL matches.
"We weren���t too sure about Brian Lara's availability - the West Indian great was laid down by a fracture in the last edition of the tournament - and so we welcome the two Pakistani batsmen to our team," Astle said.
In the first run of the ICL at Panchkula, Mumbai Champs finished fifth out of the six participating teams and in the second 20-20 event, they failed to qualify for the semifinals in a field of eight teams.
Thus it is their batting that has let them down, for an official told TOI: "Both South African opening bowler Johan van der Wath and Michael Kasprowicz did consistently well. Our batting needed some beefing up."
Umar has of course opened the batting for Pakistan and Raza is a good middle-order batsman. Besides, in Raviraj Patil Mumbai have an outstanding young prospect.
The swashbuckling Raviraj scored two fifties and a 47 at a 170 strike rate and was the only Mumbai Champs player to be selected to the ICL India team.
Umar has been shifted from the Lahore Badshahs to Mumbai, as per the selection policy of the ICL. "We do not have auctioning of players. We have a selection committee comprising Kapil Dev, Tony Greig, Kiran More and Dean Jones who change players and form teams so that a balance is maintained. The idea is to have good competition," an ICL official said.
Among the prominent home grown talent are all-rounders Robin Morris who had shown much promise in the Ranji Trophy, 20-year-old Nikhil Mandle, son of former Mumbai Ranji player Sridhar Mandle, Kiran Powar who for some years represented Baroda in the national championships and off-spinnner-batsman Shreyas Khanolkar.
Mumbai will also be looking to ���unknown material��� Sridhar Iyer, a right arm leg spinner who played the pivotal role in their victory over Ahmedabad Rockets in his debut ICL match in March this year.