Indian Premier League - IPL / Ralph Ellis / 13 April 2010 /

From Yorkshire reject to Rajasthan Royals opening batsman, Michael Lumb is the latest player to benefit from playing under the captaincy of Shane Warne and his next step may well be a place in England's XI in the T20 World Cup, says Ralph Ellis.

There are those who argue that Shane Warne will go down in cricket history as the greatest captain Australia never had. Aggressive, dominant, a deep thinker about the game and a born winner, there's no doubt he ticked all the right boxes for leading his country. He just ticked too many of the wrong ones when it came to his life off the field.

It's too late to change that now, of course, but every year the Indian Premier League gives him the chance to stir the debate again. And there are no shortage of players who will be ready to speak up for him.

The latest is Michael Lumb, a batsman whose career was drifting nowhere at Yorkshire and was then suddenly revived when he fell under Warne's magic spell at the Rose Bowl. The 30-year-old was one of the shock picks for England's Twenty20 World Cup squad, and is warming up with Rajasthan Royals at the moment under the leadership of the great Australian leg-spinner.

Lumb was a bit of an afterthought in the IPL auction, picked up for a bargain 50,000 dollars thanks to Warne's belief in him. But he's been a bit like putting Bobby Zamora in your fantasy football team just because you need somebody cheap, and then discovering he'll score far more points than Michael Owen.

Lumb's 269 runs make him the only English player in the top 20 of the IPL's batting figures at the moment. He's hit 44 fours and half a dozen sixes, and is learning to mix the demands of scoring fast runs with taking care of his wicket. "Shane's fantastic to play for because he tells you how good you are and fills you full of confidence," he says. "He's also totally focused on winning and won't settle for anything less."

That means Warne's also the ideal man to pick up the dressing room after Sunday's heavy defeat by Mumbai that put the Indians into the semi-finals, and at the same time did some serious damage to Rajasthan's net run rate. The defeat was heavy, but the game actually spun on one dropped catch when Sachin Tendulkar top edged the ball to Aditya Dole at fine leg but survived to hammer 20 off the final over.

The result saw the Royals' odds to regain the title they won in 2008 slide out to [11.0], and that looks a great punt - remembering they won the first edition back in 2008 and have the experience of winning key games near the end of the league phase.

They won't come much bigger than tomorrow's clash with second-placed Bangalore, and Rajasthan are well worth backing at around evens in the developing market. And the fact the skipper will demonstrate his faith in Lumb will also give England's newest recruit some valuable experience of playing under pressure before he arrives in the West Indies at the end of the month.


Five things you might not know about Michael Lumb

1. Born February 1980 in Johannesburg, dad Richard was Geoff Boycott's opening partner for Yorkshire between 1969 and 1984. Mum Sue's brother, Tony Smith, scored more than 3,500 first-class runs for Natal from 1972-84.

2. He grew up in England until he was ten when dad took the family back to South Africa - giving him an accent that's half Yorkshire, half South African

3. He was bowled by Graeme Swann for 11 when he played for South Africa against an England side including Rob Key in an U19 Test at Cape Town in 1998

4. He was Yorkshire's young player of the year in 2002 and 2003, but never quite filled his promise and went to Hampshire in 2007

5. He got married in January this year - the day before learning he'd been picked for England Lions

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