Sultans still waiting for their mates and stars

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad Sultans'' skipper Dilip Tirkey still does not know who his two other team mates will be; the foreign recruits are yet to reach the city as are some Indian players; and confirmation from two French players is still awaited.
Consequently, most teams are enduring some problem or the other. The Sher-e-Jallandhar team will be reaching here on Tuesday night by train from Delhi, leaving them with only one day to get over the weariness and acclimatise themselves to the conditions before taking the field against Hyderabad Sultans on Thursday.
But they will not be at full strength until Wednesday morning when their imported players - Mohd Sarwar from Pakistan and Nor Azlan from Malaysia - are expected to join them. Even Chennai Veerans, who were the first to check in, are waiting for their three foreign players. Similar is the case with Tier II teams. The teams from Lucknow, Chandigarh, Imphal, Delhi and Kolkata, are reaching here on Tuesday night. But they will have one extra day as the Tier II matches are starting on Friday.
Despite all the chaos, Sher-E-Jallandhar skipper Gagan Ajit Singh, who reached Hyderabad ahead of his team-mates for a function organised by ESPN-STAR, and Dilip Tirkey put up a brave front. "We had a lengthy camp after the the Punjab Games and the team is almost the same. The foreign players are very experienced and I don''t think jelling will be a big problem," Gagan said. Dilip, however, said it would have been better if all his players had got a chance to practice together for more days. "That would have helped knowing the many young players in our team."