'We are not worried about victory or defeat. I will allow my players to play aggressive cricket.'
Former India batsman Virender Sehwag on Tuesday said he would encourage Kings XI Punjab players to play aggressive cricket during the upcoming tenth season of the Indian Premier League.
"We are not worried about victory or defeat. I will allow my players to play aggressive cricket," said Sehwag, the director (cricket operations) for Kings XI Punjab.
"The players of Kings XI Punjab would play fearlessly like I have played," quipped the right-handed batsman.
Sehwag also confirmed that pacer Ishant Sharma, who was not picked by any of the franchises in the IPL auction, has been roped in to bolster their bowling attack.
"It's a pleasure to inform that Ishant is now picked up by Kings XI. I have an old rapport with him as we played together in Indian team," he said.
"IPL was known as the game of batsmen but half of the matches in IPL were won due to bowlers, who stopped the batsmen from scoring. So, we have picked Ishant Sharma in place of Murali Vijay to sharpen our bowling attack," he added.
Expressing hope that performance of the team would be better, Sehwag said some players are in good form unlike in the last season, when they finished bottom of the league standings with eight points in 14 matches.
"We have good batsmen like Martin Guptill, Glenn Maxwell, Eoin Morgan, Darren Sammy and David Miller. If any two of these batsman perform then we can easily win the match," he added.
"Now we can't go down anymore. Now, we can go up. If our players would perform, our team would reach in the play off."