On Wednesday night, coach Greg Shipperd congratulated the squad in an impromptu speech in the team bus. “Dilshan’s creativity, Karthik’s brilliance, Mishra’s sacrifice, Sangwan’s fight...” he went on. “It’s great to see all of you eager to perform in all aspects of the game,” he said to a round of applause.

BLACK MAGIC

In the middle of these obvious cricketing reasons, Sekar throws up another interesting idea. “We underwent a colour change this season because some experts told us that black is a bad omen,” he said. “We didn’t want any negativity and decided to mix the red with blue this season. The change seems to have worked,” he said.

But keeping both superstition and planning aside, there have been a few strokes of luck as well. They were in the race for signing Moises Henriques but the Australian all-rounder went to Kolkata because he “couldn’t say no to John Buchanan”. As a result, they went hunting for a quick bowler and got a huge boost in the transfer market when acquiring Nehra gave them instant returns, and a better bargain than Mumbai, who got Shikhar Dhawan in return.

“Things are working out for us somehow,” Sehwag admitted. “Even in the way we’ve won matches, the rub of the green has been in our favour.”

Delhi had made the semi-finals last year, when they lost to eventual champions Rajasthan. This time, they feel, they have a better shot at going the distance.