Rajasthan aim to build on "champions" tag

Being the defending champions will help as well as add pressure in equal measure for Rajasthan Royals. The first batch of nine players, which included Mohammed Kaif, Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja expressed that sentiment before departing for South Africa for the second edition of the IPL. Both Kaif and Yusuf agreed that the pressure would obviously be there because of their fairy-tale like victory in the inaugural season last year.

Kaif said Rajasthan would treat the tournament as a "new" beginning, without forgetting the various components that helped in the build-up to their title victory last season. "It will be a fresh start because last year we played in India, the conditions suited our bowlers and the batsmen and fielders supported them well," Kaif said. "But this is a new start."

Adapting to the conditions as quickly as possible will be another key factor. "We need to adjust quickly even if we are going there ten days before the tournament starts," Kaif said. "Of course we have a couple of practice games, so the bowlers need to understand the pace and bounce quickly."

Last year, Kaif had provided valuable inputs to Shane Warne and Darren Berry, Rajasthan's captain-team director combination. Asked if Graeme Smith could feed the team management with similar inputs, Kaif was positive the South African captain would be the key.

Despite having a healthy home presence in Smith and Tyron Henderson - originally a South African, who now plays for the English county Middlesex - Kaif felt Rajasthan would sorely miss the Pakistan fast bowler Sohail Tanvir. The Pakistan players' contracts were terminated by the IPL after the Pakistan government asked them not to travel to India after the relations between the two countries became strained in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Mumbai last November.

"We are going to miss some key players: Tanvir did really well last season and his four overs were something special every game," Kaif said. "Kamran Akmal did his job well whenever given the chance, both behind the stumps and with the bat. We have some new players this season so I'm looking forward to meeting the entire squad."

Yusuf said Tanvir was just one of the building blocks of Rajasthan's success and this year the team would need to move ahead in his absence. "Having won the championship will help us," Kaif said. "That and the youngsters having done well last season will also help. That was the secret to our success. In this format the opposition will look for the new players they don't know about and that helped last year for us."

Jadeja, who hit headlines with his power cameos last year, said the responsibility is now on players like him to remain consistent. "The key player will be that one who will start well, remain consistent and then perform well in the main games as the tournament progresses."

Meanwhile the Rajasthan officials have made it clear that they had no option but to go ahead with the 25 players without any player hailing from the state. "The IPL has put a restriction on the number of players in the squad (25), so we had to rationalise our strategy," Utkarsh Sen, the business head at Emerging Media Group, the owners of Rajasthan, said. Last year Rajasthan had two players in the squad - Pankaj Singh and Sumit Khatri - with Pankaj playing a few games. Sen said this year, too, left-arm spinner Gajendra Singh and left-arm fast bowler Mohammad Arif, recognised as upcoming talents, were part of the development squad but since the event was moved outside India the management decided to release them.

The management has managed to sign up cement maker Ultratech as the new title sponsor, replacing Bajaj Allianz.