Delhi Daredevil openers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir would have to get their act together before it is too late in the Airtel CL T20.

By Chandraboli Mitra

The successful opening pair of Indian cricket – Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag failed to shine for Delhi Daredevils as they could post a mere 98 for eight against Victoria Bushrangers in their opening Airtel Champions League Twenty20 match on Friday night that they chased down comfortably with 20 balls to spare.

The Daredevils started as clear favourites, with the likes of Sehwag, Gambhir, Owais Shah, Ashish Nehra, Dirk Nannes in their ranks, playing on their home ground. But the miserable start by the Indian opening pair sealed the fate of the game much before it was over.

The captain of the Delhi outfit, Gambhir took the blame on himself and his opening partner at a press conference, “In the absence of AB de Villiers and Daniel Vettori, we know that we have to take more responsibility on our shoulders. All we can do is to try and turn it around in the next match.”

Adding that there is never much time in Twenty20, Gambhir further added, “In Twenty20 you have to take your chances. It is the first six overs that decide everything. Hence, you need to get off to a good start. Moreover, we never had any good partnerships today.”

The Bushrangers captain, Cameron White meanwhile also agreed that sending back Sehwag-Gambhir early was the key.

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“Those two were obviously pretty big wickets and it certainly set the tone but I would say that Daredevils have number of big hitters and it was important that we kept taking wickets.”

The day saw both the Australian teams winning their respective matches – the New South Wales emerged winners against the Diamond Eagles and then the Victoria Bushrangers snatched the game away from the Daredevils.

But when Gambhir was asked whether the Australian teams adapt to the conditions quickly, he said, “I don’t know whether they adapted well but they surely played with a good strategy. They bowled wicket to wicket and that was the way to go about it. Overall, they played better cricket than us.”

White also added, “We executed our plans better. And once we knew the total, we played smart cricket. We decided to chase the total patiently and don’t do anything silly. We played sensibly. I am happy with the way the boys played.”

With such low total on the board, Daredevils never had a chance, “We always were 30-40 runs short. We knew that 130-140 would have been a winning total. But when we could not even put up 100 on the board, we knew we hardly had a chance. We knew we would have to bowl wicket to wicket and try and get early wickets. But Rob Quiney simply took the game away from us.”

The top-scorer Quiney scored a fine quickfire 40 runs to take the game away from the Daredevils’ reach, chasing a small target.

Now the Daredevils have an uphill task at hands in the next match against Wayamba and the skipper is fully aware of the fact.

“Next game is a must win match for us and the advantage is that we now know how much total do we need and how to go about it. We have the potential and I have no doubt that we should be able to cross the line in the next match,” concluded Gambhir. 

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