Would like to make life easy for Sehwag: Jayawardene

Delhi Daredevils vice captain Mahela Jayawardene said Monday that he would like to share the leadership burden with skipper Virender Sehwag to allow the dashing Indian opener to play freely during season five of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

“We would like to make life easy for Viru (Sehwag). Both KP (Kevin Pietersen) and I have the responsibility to help Viru in decision making on and off the field. We have good blend of youth and experience in our team and we as senior players just need to guide the youngsters,” Jayawardene said.

Jayawardene, who along with Pietersen joined the team Sunday after missing the first two games, said he was looking forward to the remaining matches. The Sri Lankan captain and the Englishman joined the Daredevils late due to the Test series in Sri Lanka that ended 1-1.

“I am really excited to be here. I know I have missed a couple of games but nothing changes with me being the vice captain. The guys have had two good games. First one was a really good game away from home. I am looking forward to the remaining matches. We got some exciting players in the squad, couple of good signings. And for me to be first time part of Daredevils, I am really excited,” said Jayawardene.

Jayawardene, who will be playing his first season with Daredevils, said Tuesday’s encounter against defending champions Chennai Super Kings would be tough.

“Obviously they are the defending champions and they have got a really good group of players. We just need to make sure that we are able to control their batting line-up which is their strong point. We need to come up with some plans and execute them during the game. And on top of that we need to concentrate on our strengths and be very positive about executing our plans according to our strengths. We will have couple of good meetings as some of the boys just got together. This is going to be my first training session with the squad. We will keep talking and see how we can improve going forward,” he said.

Jayawardene said he won’t have much problem in adapting to Indian conditions.

“Nothing has changed much as the weather here is quite similar as we were already playing in 40 degrees in Colombo. In T20 cricket especially in the IPL different venues will give us different challenges, pitch wise as well as condition wise other than that for both of us we will look to gel with the side and execute the plans we would come up with. And I am looking forward to that,” he said.

Asked if he had a chat with Pietersen on the flight to Delhi, Jayawardene said: “Not too many discussions to be honest. There were two weeks of playing Test cricket and all we were thinking was finding ways to win for our respective countries. But after that we have had a good chat as we had ample of time as we came on the same flight to India. We had discussions about the opportunity we have in hand to play with new players and for both of us it’s a good challenge.”

Jayawardene said switching to Twenty20 mode from Tests would’t be that difficult for him.

“Coming and playing IPL after test cricket doesn’t make a difference as these days we keep changing from one format to another very quickly. Two months ago I was playing One-day cricket and two weeks ago I was then into Test cricket so we have to learn to adjust from one form to another. Its all in the mind how we re-focus ourselves to do a different job,” he said.