Ramesh Powar, the heavily built bowling allrounder from Mumbai, has recently opted to change to Rajasthan for the upcoming couple of seasons. He has stated that the main reason behind this decision is the feeling that his services were no longer required for a team that is regarded as the very best in domestic cricket owing to its dominating performance over the years. The player, who has represented the national team as well, met the officials of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on August 12, 2013 in order to get the No Objection Certificate that will help him to move over to Rajasthan. The formalities were also completed in remarkably short time because of the cordial relations between both the parties.
Powar has given several reasons for his decision. He has stated that in the last couple of seasons he has felt that he is no longer needed in the team. According to him he was also under-utilized in spite of being a regular feature of the playing XI. He was mostly bowling short spells and then fielding near the boundaries. Very clearly Powar did not like all this and had also stopped to enjoy the very game that is both his livelihood and passion.
He stated that he felt that it was time he took up a new challenge. Accordingly he had a discussion with his family including his brother Kiran Powar, who has been a first class player himself, and opted to get out of Mumbai. Over a period of ten years, this heavyset allrounder has been a major contributor to the success of Mumbai and he also has several good memories of playing for the Australia of Indian domestic cricket. He feels his best years came under the coaching of Praveen Amre. That 5 year period was the best, according to him, in his career.
Powar feels that coupled with the success at that time there was the emergence of new talent in the form of Rohit Sharma, Abhishek Nayar and Ajinkya Rahane. All these factors helped Mumbai achieve an unprecedented level of dominance. Incidentally all these players have represented the national team as well with Rohit being a regular fixture at the top order for the one day team. He felt that Amre’s methods were important in his success as he continually presented him new challenges and reprimanded him when he was not up to the mark. He has also been effusive in his praise of the way Amre supported talented cricketers. He feels feedback is the most important thing for a sportsperson and acts as a fuel for further conquests.
One would think that it is tough to change at this advanced age when most athletes are looking to require but Powar seems to have different ideas. He feels absolutely sure that the upcoming season will be a good one. He has stated that he is feeling good having worked on his fitness. According to Powar Rajasthan will be a fresh challenge for him and feels the team has a good set-up headed by Hrishikesh Kanitkar with whom Powar has been in great terms because of the amount of office cricket that they have played together. He has also opined that he will have a lot of responsibility especially in the bowling, which is clearly his stronger suite.
Powar still harbors expectations of donning the national jersey once more and perhaps the challenge of representing a new team will spur him to achieve the level of performance needed to make that dream come true.
