India Abroad - April 29, 2011

SPORTS
Daredevil Sehwag targets strong finish
BIKASH MOHAPATRA
Virender Sehwag speaks straight from the heart. Ask
him a question, and you are assured the replies will be
pertinent, the number of politically correct responses
kept to a minimum (if any at all) and the fear of impli-
cations almost non-existent.
After a successful World Cup, where he amassed 380
runs in eight matches at an average of 47.5, Sehwag, 32,
was expected to continue in the same vein for the Delhi
Daredevils in the fourth edition of the Indian Premier
League.
The team failed to hold on to key players in the auc-
tion. There was no Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers,
Tillakeratne Dilshan, Daniel Vettori and Dirk Nannes.
Even key domestic players like Amit Mishra, Dinesh
Karthik and Rajat Bhatia made their way to greener pas-
tures. Sehwag had at his disposal a completely new
team. Besides, he was returning to lead the team after a
long gap, Gambhir having gone to the Kolkata Knight
Riders.
Delhi had a disastrous start to the campaign, losing its
first two matches without much of fight. The new team
was yet to gel as a unit. The captain expectedly was the
first to admit that his team lacked the required cohesion.
Sehwag led from the front, allowing the team to
regroup and win its third game — an away tie against
the Pune Warriors. He, however, admitted that a lot of
work still needs to be done.
“It is difficult to build a team when you have a com-
pletely new set of players,” he confessed. “If you have a
couple of players from the earlier team, it is easy to build
a team around them. But when you have only one play-
er retained, in this case myself, it is difficult. (Infact, the
Daredevils also retained David Warner)
Sehwag felt his team is now headed in the right direc-
tion. “We are practicing hard, sharing experiences and
information with each other and are happy about each
other’s performances,” explained Sehwag. “So I would say
we are getting better as a unit. We need a couple of good
performances and we will be there.”
He also praised coach Greg Shippard’s efforts.
“Our coach has done a fantastic job,” he admitted. “There
was a camp going on from March 30 and he asked all the
players to bat in the nets and work hard. There were a cou-
ple of practice games before the tournament that helped

SIPHI WE SIBEKO/REU TERS
our team considerably. It also helped the coach know which
batsmen we want and which bowlers we want.”
In the absence of Nannes, Vettori, Mishra and others, the
Daredevils’ bowling looks pedestrian, even in the lone
match they won. Asked about it, Sehwag jumped to the
defence of his bowlers.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “We have (Ashok) Dinda,
Umesh Yadav, Ajit Agarkar and Irfan Pathan. Besides, we
have Morne Morkel, one of the best fast bowlers in the
world at present, and also Roelef van der Merwe.”
He said his bowlers will take time to assert themselves.

BIKASH MOHAPATRA
He has won the World Cup both as
player and coach, and his pedigree in
both the roles is proven. His career as a
player lasted only seven years, but his
stint as coach is 15 years and running!
Geoff Marsh’s latest coaching assign-
ment is with the Pune Warriors, an out-
fit that made its Indian Premier League
debut this season. The Australian is in
charge of a team that has players like
Yuvraj Singh, Jesse Ryder, Graeme
Smith and Robin Uthappa.
It wasn’t all surprising when the
debutants gave their 53-year-old coach
a winning start — a thumping seven
wicket win over Kings XI Punjab. An
equally convincing win over fellow-
newcomers Kochi Tuskers Kerala fol-
lowed. However, a hat-trick of victories
did not materialize, with the Delhi
Daredevils halting the wining run.

Everyone in this team steps up to per-
form the role assigned to him.”
Marsh also had a few words of appre-
ciation for his captain, Yuvraj.
“Yuvi has been terrific,” he said. “He
told me that he has been doing fitness
training after the World Cup. He’s
doing well at the moment and, hopeful-
ly, he keeps doing it going forward.”
He expressed confidence about his
team going all the way in the tourna-
ment.
“We go into every game to win it,” he
said. “We have got a good enough side,
and, if we play well, we can make it to
the final and then go all the way. But it
is a long road ahead.”
Geoff Marsh
MICHAEL CRAB TREE/REU TERS

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