We're hungry for a win, says coach Shipperd

“We are hungry to win. In the first two games we had two losses. It was disappointing and not where we wanted to be as a team. We are coming up against this side (Pune Warriors) which has won a couple of matches and will be full of confidence,” said the Western Australian ahead of morrow’s game against the table toppers at the D Y Patil Stadium.

“We have seen in the last three IPLs that teams can start poorly but can all of a sudden have a run of 2 or 3 or 4 games in a row. That was the case last year. We had a tardy start. We won four matches in a row and were back in the competition,” he pointed out.

He explained that the tournament is still young and the team had 12 more games to play before the play-offs and, once the batsmen get going, the outfit can become competitive.

“We are only in the first part of the tournament that has got 14 games and we are two games into that. We know we can get very competitive once our batters get going and once our bowling combination works,” he said.

Shipperd hinted that there could be some changes in the combination, which would be done after assessing the wicket. “We will rejig our combination slightly and hopefully come up with a right one to score some points. We are going to try out in the middle today and try to make our assessment on how the bounce of the wicket is going to be.

“We have noted in the first couple of matches that there is some bounce and swing. If we do get our combination right, our squad will have the opportunity to shift the balance of quite significantly,” he said. The 54-year-old coach said Vidarbha speedster Umesh Yadav has bounced back into contention for a slot in the playing eleven after missing the last match against Rajasthan Royals.

“Dinda and Umesh in our first game were particularly good. We could not play Umesh in Rajasthan because of conditions and he comes back into consideration for this game,” he said.