Coulter-Nile shows faith in current DD squad

Delhi Daredevils may have come out short against Chennai Super Kings in their IPL 8 opener on Thursday, but they came quite close of breaking their nine-match losing streak. On the day, it was DD's bowling that performed out of their skin, led by Nathan Coulter-Nile's economic 3/30 which kept a batting-heavy CSK to 150. After injuring himself in the initial part of last year's IPL, the Australia pacer is back - better and fresher, and reckons his side is better-shaped as compared to last year.

"If you don't win games, they will either put you out of the team or they will change the team," Coulter-Nile told IPLt20.com. "Last year we won only two games and things had to change. That's what has happened. I believe we have a really good bunch of people around now and we have more depth than we did last year. I hope we see people filling the gaps and take us over the rope."

After DD skipper JP Duminy opted to field, Coulter-Nile justified the faith shown by his skipper and struck in his first over with the wicket of Brendon McCullum for a duck. The 27-year-old said that even though DD finished second best, the fight shown by the team indicates good signs. "It was one heck of a game and that's what everyone wants to see. You don't take too much heart out of a lost game. We want to win every match, so it's a bit disappointing," he said.

"I was happy. It could have gone either way. McCullum or Raina could have hit a big one. You never know. You just have to try and stick to your game plan. 140-150 is always chaseable. I thought this was a beautiful wicket for cricket. Given that they were 59 after the first six overs, 150 was a pretty decent score for us to restrict them to."

The Daredevils, in order to get their IPL campaign back on track after two torrid seasons in 2013 and 2014, shuffled things up during the 2015 auction. They retained just 11 player out of their squad of 25 and Coulter-Nile was one of them. "They probably just wanted to see if I can play cricket, and so they kept me on," he said jokingly. "Last year I didn't really know my role and played only a couple of games. I didn't really get a handle on how to fit into the team. This year I am glad to have played the first game. We'll see how things unfold and take it from there."

Coulter-Nile wasn't the only one to have impressed with the ball. CSK's Ashish Nehra, playing his first match in over four months, celebrated his return to cricket with figures of 3 for 25. His opening spell of 3 for 17, which resulted in the wickets of Mayank Agarwal, CM Gautam and Shreyas Iyer, derailed the DD chase early and left them in trouble at 39 for 3.

Speaking about his Man-of-the-Match worthy performance, Nehra said it felt good to get among wickets after a prolonged layoff. "I've been bowling well since the Champions League T20 last year. After that I played the Vijay Hazare Trophy, but skipped the entire Ranji season. So this was was my first game in almost four months," Nehra told reporters. "I was quite satisfied with my run-up. The way I was bowling in the nets, I knew I was getting in the groove. That being said, there's nothing like playing a proper match. It's always good to finish on the winning side and hopefully it'll give me more confidence for the future games."

The 35-year-old Indian medium-pacer chereished his opening spell and said the importance of picking up wickets unfront cannot be undermined. "Once you get early wickets and if the opposition find themselves 20 for 3 or 30 for 4, there's always a chance of bundling them out cheapy. Seldom will they score a big score after losing wickets early. So as long as I was bowling in the right areas, I knew the batsmen will find me difficult to get away with," he said.

"You see the scoreboard, we won by one run. But we were always in the game, especially picking up early wickets. We knew we had to bowl well and that's what we did. These two points, in this format, make a big difference."

CSK will be banking on the Indian medium-pace-trio of Nehra, Irfan Pathan and Mohit Sharma and the left-armer reflected on Mohit's performance, saying his growth while playing international cricket has been commendable. Mohit played the ODIs in England last year, the tri-series in February and the recently-concluded World Cup, where he picked up 13 wickets in eight matches.

"I have seen a lot of improvement in Mohit. He has been playing non-stop cricket after the CLT20 and his length has improved," Nehra said of Mohit. "The most important thing is that his confidence level has risen to a great extent. He is more aware of his game now and has clear plans. He is an amazing fielder too and that makes him a great asset to have in a team."