Suresh Raina won’t be under Pressure: Keshav Bansal

Suresh Raina is facing one of the bad batting slumps in his career. Raina’s supposed failure to launch  in the World T20 has raised doubts regarding his participation in the upcoming IPL where he will be given a greater responsibility of leading the Gujarat Lions. However, Keshav Bansal, the owner of the Gujarat Lions has quashed any doubts regarding the form of Suresh Raina.

“Every player faces this problem in their careers. Raina is a matured cricketer and I don’t think that he would be under pressure for leading a side first time in IPL. Every player remains under pressure to perform well and Raina has very good track record. Our focus is to provide a suitable atmosphere to players can perform well.”

Bansal also reiterated that the Lions do in fact have a strong team with a decent balance and experienced cricketers.

“We have a strong core team. We worked hard on structure draft that was submitted to the Indian Premier League (IPL) to pick up players and I am satisfied that I managed to get the players which I wanted in my team,” he said. “We wanted to make a balanced team with experience and talent and I am happy that we could manage to get the experience and talented cricketers.”

“Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, James Faulkner and Dwayne Bravo are all great players and have done well for their respective countries and I am happy that these players would play from Gujarat Lions,” he said.

Gujarat will take on Kings XI Punjab in their first game of the season on April 11 (Monday) in Mohali.

Read more about the preparation of the Lions – Gujarat Lions gear up for the upcoming IPL 2016