Daredevils get their first practice session in Cape Town

Cape Town:

Bubbling with energy after victories in both the build-up matches in Pretoria, Delhi Daredevils had their first practice session at the University of Cape Grounds here on Thursday ahead of the second season of the Indian Premier League.

"The boys are all eager to go and they are all looking fit," manager T A Sekar said.

"Most have played highly competitive matches for their national and state teams in the past few weeks and are so in good match shape," said Sekar.

"The locals are excited about seeing the IPL teams and quite a few have been backing Delhi Daredevils," he added.

Putting the team through their practice session was coach Greg Shipperd, who joined the team last week in Johannesburg.

"These guys are all pros and they are in good shape," Shipperd said.

The Delhi side had earlier played two practice games against Titans and Lions at Pretoria and won both.

The cricketers played a football match with explosive Australian David Warner being the noisiest and keeping everybody in good humour.

"The best guys in the business are here and Delhi has been a fun team," Warner said.

Daredevils captain Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik and Amit Mishra will join the squad later today while South African AB de Villiers is still engaged in the ODI series against Australia.

Paul Collingwood, Owais Shah, Daniel Vettori, Dirk Nannes, Andrew McDonald, Glenn McGrath, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Farveez Maharoof were all present at the practice sessions.

The Indians who were present at the session included Ashish Nehra, Rajat Bhatia, Mithun Manhas, Manoj Tiwary, Pradeep Sanghwan, Aavishkar Salvi, Yo Mahesh, Tejaswhi Yadav, Umesh Yadav and Yogesh Nagar.