McGrath begins training with Delhi Daredevils

Glenn McGrath, the former Australian fast bowler, heads a list of international cricketers who have arrived early in India to take part in practice sessions with their respective franchise teams for the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament starting on April 18.

McGrath, who retired from international cricket last year, arrived in Delhi on Tuesday night and attended fielding drills on Wednesday morning with Delhi Daredevils, the franchise that bought him for US$ 350,000 at the players' auction in February. Delhi's support staff, including the Victoria coach Greg Shippard has also arrived for the IPL.

"What has amazed us here is the kind of commitment McGrath has shown already," TA Sekar, the cricket manager of Delhi Daredevils, told Cricinfo. "Almost as soon as he landed last night, he enquired about the practice sessions and insisted that he would start from this morning itself. You would have expected him to take some time to settle down first."

While McGrath joined Daniel Vettori, the New Zealand captain, who also landed in Delhi this week, the seven other franchises were expecting many of their big signings to reach India over the coming weekend. The Hyderabad franchise was expecting its Australian players, Andrew Symonds and Adam Gilchrist, to reach on April 12; Jaipur hoped Shane Warne, its captain and coach, would arrive on April 13; Mumbai and Kolkata will start assembling their line-ups on April 11.

Among the others who have arrived are New Zealand allrounder Scott Styris and Sri Lankan fast bowler Nuwan Zoysa for Hyderabad. While most of the franchises started practice sessions with domestic players, the Indian and South African Test players will join their teams almost immediately after their bilateral series ends on April 15.

Some of the Sri Lankans, who are currently in the West Indies, are expected to start arriving on April 16. Dimitri Mascarenhas, the lone England player in IPL, is expected to land much later due to personal commitments and may even miss one or two games for Jaipur, a team representative said.