With his leg in a brace, Kevin Pietersen hobbled into the Ferozeshah Kotla nets on Friday, much to the surprise of the Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils players practising at the time.
The England star has a knee injury and has been withdrawn from the Daredevils’ squad at the behest of the England and Wales Cricket Board.
But the flamboyant batsman, who arrived in the Capital on Thursday night for some undisclosed business with Daredevils owners GMR Group, couldn’t resist paying a visit to his teammates ahead of their second Pepsi Indian Premier League match against Rajasthan Royals on Saturday.
Pietersen spoke at length to the team ahead of the training session, and his words could well provide some inspiration to the Daredevils, who lost the opening game of the season to the Kolkata Knight Riders and will be without Virender Sehwag on Saturday as well.
Sehwag did arrive at the Kotla on Friday, dispelling rumours about a run-in with the team management, but headed straight for the massage table. His regular opening partner David Warner said Sehwag’s back spasms had dwindled, but he wasn’t going to be fit in time for Saturday’s game.
“He’s not playing tomorrow, but he’s obviously improved a lot. He’s still moving a bit sluggishly, and is getting a lot of physio treatment,” Warner said.
In the absence of Sehwag, Warner and Mahela Jayawardene will once again need to shoulder the burden of the Delhi line-up, on what is expected to be a much better batting track than the sluggish one they got first up at Eden Gardens.
The Daredevils’ bowling and fielding, too, left a lot to be desired in Kolkata, and coach Eric Simons will be hoping for a quick turnaround.
Although no team can be considered an ‘easy’ opponent in Twenty20s, the Shane Watson-less Royals are just what the Daredevils would hope for at this stage, in order to get into a winning habit.
There is no dearth of talent in the Rahul Dravid-led side Rajasthan Royals, but they tend to rely heavily on the skipper, Ajinkya Rahane and their foreign players. Apart from Watson, who will be available from their second game, they also have the top scorer in all T20 cricket, Brad Hodge, and Owais Shah in their ranks.
On the bowling side, Sreesanth is the only notable Indian, joined by two express quicks in Fidel Edwards and Shaun Tait and medium-pacer James Faulkner, while the spin department is manned by Brad Hogg and Samuel Badree.
Indian youngsters in the side need to step up for them to match their feat of being inaugural IPL champions in 2008.
With the game scheduled for four o’ clock and the temperatures set to touch 37 degrees Celsius on Saturday, batting first would be the ideal option for the side winning the toss.
src: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ipl-6-delhi-daredevils-to-salvage-lost-pride-rajasthan-royals-india-today/1/260969.html