Face aglow in the morning sunshine, he seemed to float on the hallowed turf made out of bounds by frowning securitymen.

There may not be anything saintly about Glenn McGrath’s infamous on-field persona, but for completely cricketing reasons, the propensity to add the word “great” with the Australian pacer’s name is easily explained. This morning, a wall’s-hop away from sleepy school children and honk-happy bluelines, the New South Wales native went through the initiation rites of making Ferozeshah Kotla his home ground.

As the first training session of the IPL’s Delhi Daredevils got up and running, the ice-breaking was over sharp catches and diving stops. Every run counts in Twenty20, and so fielding figured big on the task chart.

If McGrath made the dives look easy, New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori’s bouncing precedence in the drills could have deluded one about his seniority. But the day out in the sun belonged to Delhi’s home bandwagon. Most of them have grown up seeing these players on television, so a slight jump in the nerves and a stutter would’ve been entirely forgiven. This is young India however, and bigger on the minds would be the will to prove their own dollars’ worth. So as the bright red of the practice kit made them all look similar, the youngsters tried to make sure that their on-field action didn’t betray the difference in stature.

He might have been seeing McGrath in flesh for the first time, but Pradeep Sangwan has a world champions’ tag of his own, and he takes being team mates with world class players easy. “Yeah, of course it was great to meet him, but I’m looking forward to the matches,” he said. Asked if he had any questions lined up for a face-to-face query session with the Aussie, the 18-year-old didn’t bat an eyelid. “Well, we’re technically different, I have my own natural style. But it’s going to be fun to watch him from close quarters.”

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