Watching Sachin Tendulkar preparing for matches was great: JP Duminy

With the humongous success of the franchise based T2o leagues all over the world, South Africa is ready to inaugurate its very own franchise based league, known as the T2o Global League. The draft sessions have been completed and the teams have worked hard to get the signatures of their preferred players. Shah Rukh Khan owned franchise Cape Town Knight Riders (CTKR) has announced veteran Protean all-rounder Jean Paul Duminy as their skipper.

The sister franchise of Indian Premier League (IPL) side Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will be coached by KKR’s coach Jacques Kallis. Speaking about captaincy, JP Duminy mentioned that his ecstasy knew no bounds. JP Duminy also said that grooming and nurturing the young talents is a must and shared his experiences of sharing the dressing room with the ‘God’ of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar.

“I had the opportunity when I was younger to play with Sachin Tendulkar, to be in the same changing room as him and see how he goes about preparing for matches was great for me,” said JP in a conversation with SA Cricket Magazine. “At the end of the day it’s not only about winning cricket games, it’s about developing cricketers and giving younger guys the opportunities to rub shoulders with the greats of the game. This is no better time to do it. There are guys like Jason [Smith] and many local guys who can learn a lot from the senior guys in the squad,” he further added.

On getting the opportunity to lead CTKR, he said “I’m ecstatic. To be able to do it in front of my home crowd, it’s a huge honor to captain any team. I had the opportunity to captain my country in three T20s and captained Delhi [Daredevils] two years ago, so I had a small taste of it. I thoroughly enjoyed the responsibility it brings and what it brings out in me as a cricketer. I think it brings out the best in me, so hopefully, that will show in the performances in this tournament.”

This is going to be rushed tournament

Because of the tight schedule of South Africa, the 33-year old feels that the tournament will be rushed one as the players won’t get much time to prepare for the newly announced South African annual fiesta. “Unfortunately, this will be a tournament that will be a little rushed. We play a T20 series, an ODI series and a Test series against Bangladesh, so we are going to probably meet about four days before our first game. We are going to have to be very clued up in terms of what we want to do, how we want to play the game and what will be our formula for success,” said the owner of over 8,000 international runs.

There has been a lot of talk about Duminy’s form and whether he is capable enough of making it to the Protean lineup. On being asked about whether the Global League is a massive chance to clinch the entry ticket to the national team, he said “I’m obviously wanting to get back there in some way or another. But look, the tournament is still a long way away, there’s still the Bangladesh series that we need to focus on and that’s going to be my primary focus now.”