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Jennings wants window for IPL

Ray Jennings, the Royal Challengers Bangalore coach, has called for a window for the IPL, saying that missing players due to international matches makes it tougher to build team spirit

Cricinfo staff
10-Mar-2010
Ross Taylor will join Royal Challengers Bangalore only in early April  •  Associated Press

Ross Taylor will join Royal Challengers Bangalore only in early April  •  Associated Press

Ray Jennings, the Royal Challengers Bangalore coach, has called for a window for the IPL, saying that missing players due to international matches makes it tougher to build team spirit.
Bangalore will be without their most expensive player, Kevin Pietersen, for the first couple of weeks of the IPL. New Zealand's Ross Taylor, whose big-hitting is one of the side's strengths, will be busy with the Tests against Australia till the end of March, and Australian allrounder Steven Smith's selection in the Test squad also deprives Bangalore of his services till early April.
"With so much international cricket being played in between the IPL, it becomes difficult for any franchise to gel as a team," Jennings wrote on the team's official website. "As a result, it is difficult to target all the players together at the start of the tournament. I think there should be some window for the IPL for all the players to meet and gel as a unit before the start of such an important tournament."
Jennings felt that the coming IPL season will see larger totals being made because players have more experience in Twenty20. "Par score is beginning to grow because of the knowledge of how to play the game," he said. "I think the par score will be around 155 - 170. But we don't want to set our targets very high. We want to assess the situation, and be flexible with the targets."
The squad has been practising at the Chinnaswamy Stadium since the beginning of last week, starting with some of the Indian players, with more team members joining since. On Tuesday, Indian medium-pacer Praveen Kumar and South African allrounder Roelof van der Merwe were the latest players to become part of the camp.