Pruning Rajasthan squad was horrible job: Warne

London:

Pruning the Rajasthan Royals squad from 27 to 18, which meant leaving out players like Mohd Kaif, was a horrible job, says the defending Indian Premier League champions' captain-cum-coach Shane Warne.

Royals relieved Kaif, who was bought for USD 650,000 last season, and eight others from team duty a couple of days ago and Warne said it was not easy to convey the news to the left-out players.

"One of the most difficult tasks has been to prune our squad from 27 to 18 players. That really was a horrible job and some of the guys were pretty emotional when I broke the bad news. You have to be straight and I told those who didn't make the cut that they could still have good careers," Warne wrote in his column for 'The Times'.

"Their reactions reminded me of how big the IPL has become in little over a year," he added.

Apart from this, Warne said the other major challenge has been to make his side's young Indian players, who have never travelled abroad, comfortable in South Africa which has been nothing short of a "cultural shock" for them.

"...The younger Indian guys in our squad are finding South Africa a bit of a culture shock. They've certainly been dragged out of their comfort zones. Some of them hadn't stepped out of their own country before, let alone played overseas."