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Nannes has been one of the keys for our success so far

One of the challenges of T20 cricket is starting well and keeping the momentum, writes Glenn McGrath

The news that everyone wants from the Delhi Daredevils camp is the progress made by Virender Sehwag after he missed the last game through injury.

It was a deep cut, and while he is recovering well, it remains to be seen whether he will play on Tuesday.

We are scheduled to play the Kolkata Knight Riders in the second game, so we are not yet taking a call on Daniel Vettori, who missed out against Chennai because David Warner had to come in instead of Sehwag.

I suspect it’s going to be harder for us to make such a decision in Durban where the spinners have done very well. We will see how the first game of the day plays out and will take a call about whether we can go without a spinner only after that.

Comfortable at the top

Looking at our position at this stage, we are pretty comfortable at the top of the table, that too with a game in hand. The loss against Chennai did hurt because we had the game in control when we needed to get 40 off five overs.

Unfortunately, some of the guys were slightly inexperienced and we fell well short at the end.

On Tuesday, we take on the Kolkata Knight Riders for the first time in the tournament.

Great time

They have not really had a great time so far, and I am as surprised as anybody else as to how a team with the talent of Chris Gayle, Sourav Ganguly, Brendon McCullum and Ishant Sharma is having such a hard time.

One of the challenges of T20 cricket is starting well and keeping the momentum.

No time to reassess

However, the downside is that when things are not going our way, there is no time to reassess, regroup and restart. John Buchanan is a coach I have played with for many years, and I wonder how he is taking this string of failures.

He was used to the successes that the Australians achieved when he was with the team, and really don’t know how he is taking this slump.

Good news

For Delhi, the good news is the non-availability of Gayle. Though he did not do too well in the tournament, he is a batsman who can single-handedly win a game.

His absence might mean that the Kolkata team will reassess the combination of overseas players in the side, and we might get to see more of the spinning sensation Ajantha Mendis in the coming games. However, I would think we have the goods to play him since both Gautam Gambhir and the in-form Tillekaratne Dilshan have experience of playing him.

The performance of Dirk Nannes has been one of the keys for our success so far, and I expect he will do well against Kolkata, whose opening pair would be a new one in the absence of Gayle.

We are not complacent or taking anything for granted, but there is a quiet confidence in the camp as we enter the second half our league games.

Gameplan

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