The Hindu : Sport : Royals seeks revenge against Daredevils

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Royals seeks revenge against Daredevils

G. Viswanath

— Photo: Sandeep Saxena

TITANS: Shane Warne exchanges pleasantries with Glenn McGrath at Jaipur on Saturday.

Jaipur: Delhi Daredevils has remained on eight points for 10 days now in the DLF-Indian Premier League.

It made short work of Rajasthan Royals in its first match and thereafter relied on the mighty contributions from Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, showed the knack to win matches and was soon tagged one of the favourites.

Then it ran into Mumbai Indians, a team beset with problems and fighting for its life.

Need to buck up

The situation may be not be that alarming for Daredevils, but it has to buck up with a collective effort, repeat its win against the Royals and regain confidence and momentum.

The home team has been in wonderful form at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium and is looking forward to keeping its slate clean.

The signs are ominous for the Daredevils. On Friday night the Royals’ charismatic skipper Shane Warne said he was inclined to treat the next game here as a revenge match. He is eager to get one foot in the semifinal door before proceeding to Mohali.

When asked whether anyone could stop his team from entering the semifinals, Warne said: “I am not sure at the moment. We still have six games to go. We said at the start of the tournament that about eight wins would take us into the semifinals. At the moment the fifth placed team has three wins and fourth is Delhi with four wins. So we are two wins clear of four and three wins clear of fifth.”

“We have played very well at home. In our first game Delhi gave it to us straightaway. So we are looking for a little bit of revenge. But I am very happy with the way we have responded as a group after the loss against Mumbai. We didn’t play a good game against Mumbai, so I challenged my guys and I was a bit harsh on them for the first time in the tournament. And I think they responded extremely well,” said Warne.

Warne’s problem has been how to bring in Dimitri Mascarenhas who would be replaced by Pakistan’s Younis Khan next week.

“That’s another happy headache to have. Had Dimitri not been injured he would have played today (against Deccan Chargers on Friday). He had an MRI done and hopefully John Gloster will get him up and we will see him in action on Sunday,” Warne said.

The teams (from):

Rajasthan Royals: Shane Warne (Capt.), Graeme Smith, Yusuf Pathan, Mohammad Kaif, Shane Watson, Ravindra Jadeja, Mahesh Rawat, Munaf Patel, Siddharth Trivedi, Sohail Tanvir, Niraj Patel, Swapnil Asnodkar, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Dinesh Salunkhe, Taruwar Kohli and Kamran Akmal.

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (Capt.), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, A.B. de Villiers, Rajat Bhatia, Shoaib Malik, Dinesh Karthik, Glenn McGrath, Mohammad Asif, Pradeep Sangwan, Farveez Maharoof, Mithun Manhas, Brett Geeves, Manoj Tiwary and Amit Mishra.

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