Over the past week, Desert Vipers Director of Cricket Tom Moody has been busy working with his very talented coaching team and the management, setting plans in place for season two of the DP World ILT20. The goal is to go one better than last year and win the trophy.
Speaking to the Vipers Voices podcast, Tom Moody said he believed the team has what it takes: “We feel very confident in what we have done in our prep, and we feel we have recruited exceptionally well, and we know we are going to have a few obstacles with players coming and going. But at the end of the day we, like all the other franchises, have set our sights on lifting the trophy.
“We were one step short last year, but we feel we have the depth and quality of our squad right and we just have to prepare in the last few days into our first game and hopefully we can get off to a winning start and reach the big dance.”
Leading the Desert Vipers on the field is Colin Munro, who has been handed the role of captain for a second year running, and that was a very easy decision according to the Director of Cricket: “He (Colin Munro) did a great job last year.
“It is always tricky for a captain with a new franchise and not just that but a new tournament. He had to shoulder a lot of responsibilities, with all the obstacles while bringing a new team together but also a new franchise finding its feet in a new tournament.
“Colin has a lot of experience around the globe especially in T20 cricket, and he was given the opportunity, and he did a great job both on the field and off it and hopefully he can take us one step further this year.”
Munro has been in tremendous batting form, most recently for Brisbane Heat in the BBL, where he played the role of opener successfully, and is currently the top scorer for his team.
So, does that mean Munro will go up the order for the Vipers as well? Moody said he believed the captain’s greatest attribute is his adaptability: “Colin, over his playing career, has occupied anywhere from one to five in the batting order, hence he is such a desirable player in this format.
“He has been central to the success of Brisbane Heat in the BBL, and it is great that he is coming to us in some really good form, and whether he finds himself at the top of the order or three or four, we will see on the opening day, as we do not want to give too much away.”
This year the desert Vipers face the prospect of greater player movement in and out of the team, due to international commitments, but Tom Moody said the real challenge was how to best manage the players: “Every team faces the same challenge with players from other cricketing nations, where you have fixture challenges where some teams have Test, ODI or T20 series clashing with our tournament. That is the landscape of T20 cricket.
“What we have is a strong squad in all departments, we boast a strong bowling attack and as we know with fast bowlers there is no guarantee they are going to remain fit for the whole tournament. Also, we have a very congested schedule this season with two sets of back-to-back games.
“So, it is about managing players, as we do not want to burn players out. If we have the depth in our squad and it does not compromise the best eleven that we can put out there, we will use the flexibility and depth and quality in our squad to do so. At this stage, we are very comfortable going into season two.”
When asked by Vipers Voices about his take on the super-sub rule, Moody had a great suggestion to offer: “I personally would have liked to see the super-sub rule used for the UAE players rather than exclusively for the overseas players. Purely because it enables you to use three UAE players in your playing eleven, UAE players get more exposure, and you can use a specialist UAE batter and a specialist UAE bowler. You get more players getting exposed to top-level cricket and ultimately, we are all here to develop the game in the region.”
And speaking about the four UAE players in the squad Moody said: “We are very excited (about the four UAE players in the squad). We have a spin focus, and they provide us with that depth and options, with an additional leg-break bowler and a left-arm spinner. Finalising the two UAE players will give us a (selection) headache there as well because what we have seen is that all four players have shown great promise, and we are excited about what they can potentially bring to the table.”
One setback for the team came with news of Tom Curran being ruled out of the tournament, but Tom Moody said he expected Curran to bounce back in even better form: “Unfortunately for Tom (Curran) he had to cut his BBL season short with a knee injury and he had to take the difficult decision to step away from the ILT20 this year.
“He will be a big loss for us not only because he is a real impact player on the field with bat and ball but his impact off the field is also considerable. We wish him well because he is an integral part of the Desert Vipers and hopefully has a long and fruitful future with us.”
The DP World ILT20 gets underway on Friday 19 January and the Desert Vipers’ first match is against the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday 21 January.
Tickets for all Desert Vipers matches are now on sale and can be purchased via the official DP World ILT20 website or at any Virgin Megastore across the UAE.
