'IPL teams will bounce back'

New Delhi, Oct 11: The Indian Premier League (IPL) teams might be on the brink of exit but the New South Wales Blues and Sussex Sharks skippers feel it is too early to rule them out of the Champions League Twenty20 race.

IPL champions Deccan Chargers, runners-up Bangalore Royal Challengers and Delhi Daredevils all lost their first matches and are now fighting to stay afloat in the tournament.

Blues' skipper Simon Katich, after their 35-run win over Sussex Sharks Sunday, said he is taken by surprise at the loss of local teams.

"I am surprised with IPL teams' results as they are playing at home and know about the wickets here so well. But this is just the start and there are many more tough matches to come. So, it will be early to say that they are out," Katich said.

Asked whether the IPL teams are at disadvantage against the foreign teams since they don't play together often, Katich said: "I don't think so. The IPL teams play 14 matches in a season and we just had five this year."

Sharks stand-in-captain Ed Joyce concurs. "It's still early days and they have played just one match so far. I think the IPL teams will come back stronger, better in their coming games."

Blues Friday became the second team after Cape Cobras to enter the second stage of the tournament but Katich said they are still an inexperienced bunch in the Twenty20 format.

"The wickets are low and slow here and we knew what to expect, Sussex had a good bowling side. They have bowlers in Piyush Chawla and Yasser Arafat from the sub-continent, so we wanted to post a strong total. We knew anything above 125 will be a good total," Katich said.

"But this is just a start. We are still an inexperienced side in Twenty20 format. We are getting better with each match and so are the other teams playing in this event."

Joyce said his team's preparations were not ideal.

"We did play a few practice matches but the pitches were a lot different from here. It was a slow and low wickets but we were confident that we would chase down the 131-run target. Things did not go our way," said Joyce.

--IANS