By IANS,
London : The Middlesex team will pay from their pockets for their extra two days of training in Mumbai for the Champions League that begins in first week of December.
Middlesex will fly to Mumbai next week Thursday, two days before the Champions League organisers are willing to pay their expenses, so that they can acclimatise to the conditions on the sub-continent.
“The players have made a commitment to go out there and give themselves the best chance to perform so we are happy to take that hit in the pocket to give ourselves extra preparation time,” captain Shaun Udal was quoted as saying in the Daily Telegraph.
“If we had gone out there on the 30th then we would only have two days to prepare and that is not long enough. We want to have four or five days of preparation, so we can have a warm-up match and play under the lights. That means we will pay out of our winnings for two days hotel accommodation and expenses.”
Middlesex qualified for the tournament by winning the Twenty20 Cup last summer.
The team wants to give their best shot to the $6million tournament and are still hopeful that England will release Owais Shah and Andrew Strauss to play in the tournament.
Middlesex’s opening match is in Mumbai Dec 3 against the Victorian Bushrangers from Australia. They then switch to Madras to play Titans of South Africa and IPL runners-up the Chennai Super Kings, led by India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.