Bushrangers coach Shipperd wary of IPL teams

Bushrangers coach Greg Shipperd rates the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Deccan Chargers as the teams to beat in the Champions League Twenty20 tournament which gets under way in India next Thursday.

The Delhi Daredevils, the Bushrangers' main threats in Group D, should not be underestimated either, according to Shipperd, who coached the Daredevils in the second season of the Indian Premier League in South Africa earlier this year.

Of the world's 12 leading domestic Twenty20 squads taking part, Shipperd believes Bangalore and Deccan have 'the most outstanding combinations'.

The Chargers' squad of 15 includes skipper Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Scott Styris and Fidel Edwards while the Royal Challengers have Kiwis Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder, and South Africans Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Dale Steyn to call upon.

"In both those teams their international players really carry the day," said Shipperd.

"As far as Delhi's concerned, it's more so their Indian players with (Gautam) Ghambir, (Virender) Sehwag, (Amit) Mishra and (Dinesh) Karthik that form the nucleus of their side surrounded by some good international players.

"It's those IPL teams and New South Wales I think as well with the number of internationals they have in their side that will be the major threats in the competition."

Shipperd said the Bushrangers have done plenty of homework on the third team in Group D, the Wayamba Elevens from Sri Lanka, but were totally focused on their opening match against the Daredevils before an anticipated crowd of around 80,000 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi.

"Our players are very aware now of the relative strengths and weaknesses of that particular team and it will be a titanic struggle first-up, an interesting one and could go either way," Shipperd said.

The Bushrangers and Delhi will be favoured to advance to the second round from Group D where they would meet the qualifiers from Group C which includes the Royal Chargers.

The top four second-round teams will advance to the knockout stage.

Shipperd believes that anything less than a berth in the second round would be a failure for the Bushrangers.

"That would be a lovely opportunity to move into that and have three more games of cricket," he said.

"Round two for me would be a par, but certainly we're going there to win the competition, no doubt about that."

Asked whether he was satisfied with the security in place for the tournament, Shipperd said: "I experienced a real step-up in security measures in IPL2 in South Africa and the same group is going to be looking after the security for this particular champions League.

"I'm very relaxed about the arrangements that have been made for this particular league."

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