In the wake of Shaun Pollock's retirement and Makhaya Ntini's dip in form, South Africa needed a bowler to complement Dale Steyn. In stepped Pigeon. No, not Glenn McGrath, but Wayne Parnell. With the same nickname as the great Australian bowler, and with very promising performances, Parnell may well provide South Africa's bowling with great firepower.
A fast left-arm pacer, who comes hustling into the wicket, he releases the ball with a whippy, open-chested action action. His stock delivery is the one which swings into the batsmen at high speeds, called the 'Bender'. This makes him a threat on any wicket, which is a huge asset in this era of flat pitches.
Following strong domestic performances for the South African U-19 squad, Parnell was drafted into the South African team for the Australian tour in 2008-09. Although his start was not auspicious, he was selected for the ODI series against Australia and for the subsequent World T-20 in England and here he blossomed.
He impressed with a four wicket haul in just his second ODI against Australia, and since then his performances have improved with every outing. The most sparkling performance came in the World T-20, where he took 9 wickets in 6 matches, including a haul of 4/13 against West Indies in the Super sixes, and a restrictive spell of 3 wickets against England.
He continued picking up wickets with two five-wicket hauls: one against New Zealand in the Champions Trophy and one against England in the bilateral home series. Although a touch on the expensive side, Parnell has shown that he is an attacking bowler to whom the skipper can turn to anytime for wickets.
A Test debut was thus, just a matter of time, and Parnell got his chance against England in the home series in the final Test. South Africa won the Test, and drew the four match series 1-1, but with England clinging onto to two draws by the skin of their teeth, those who had called for Parnell to be inducted into the Test team sooner were proven right.
Confirming his growing stature in world cricket, Parnell was snapped up by the Delhi Daredevils for the third edition of the IPL for a neat sum of USD 610,000. He did not play much for Delhi Daredevils and was let go in the 2011 season. Luck favoured him though, he was snapped up by the Pune Warriors in the next auctions for USD160,000. While doing nothing special with the ball, Parnell found himself involved in an unpleasant controversy. He and team-mate Rahul Sharma were the two men arrested and held for questioning after Mumbai police busted a rave party. Both were released on bail after being detained over night for the consumption of banned drugs at the party. After that he went on to tweet, \"What up tweeps. Just want to assure you that last night was blown out of proportion and that I will be releasing a statement #alliswell\".
Since then he has gone on to improve his professional and personal life. He has become a consistent member of the ODI and the T20 squad. He also won an ODI Man of the Match award against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi for his all round efforts in November 2013.
Parnell got back into the Test team after 4 years, he was picked to play against Australia in February 2014 at Port Elizabeth. After just bowling around 8 overs and having picked up 2 wickets, he injured himself which did not allow him to bowl for the rest of the match. However, he was fit for the 2014 T20 WC and did well as he picked up 4 wickets in 2 games. He was also snapped up Delhi Daredevils in the 2014 IPL auctions.
No comments:
Post a Comment