Delhi getting an unfair rap: bowls coach

New Delhi, 14 Sept 2010: Australian Richard Gayle reckons Delhi has unfairly copped a bad rap. The coach of India's lawn bowls team believes widespread criticism of the looming Commonwealth Games isn't justified. "There has been a lot of bad publicity in papers outside of India and it's a bit unwarranted," Gayle told AAP. Advertisement: Story continues below "The overall build-up is obviously slow, they have taken their time getting into stride, but things are starting to fall into place now." Gayle, who has lived in the Indian capital for the past 18 months, said security was unlikely to be a problem at the October 3-14 Games. "The security is the best I have seen," he said while standing at the synthetic turf lawn bowls venue for the Games. "We're not worried about it, we haven't had any trouble ... security is not going to be a problem. "But look, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, anything can happen - it could happen in Sydney or Melbourne, it could happen in Tokyo. "You can walk across the road and get run over by a car. "So the security is not the problem here, they have been very strict here with body searches and the checks - every time we come into the stadium they check us. "Even other events I have been too, boxing and a couple of others, you can't even take a pen in, security has been really, really tight." In typically forthright Australian fashion, Gayle also dismissed the dengue fever outbreak in Delhi - just slap on some Aeroguard, he said. "The dengue problem I think has been blown out of proportion," he said. "There is probably a little bit more publicity about it than there should be, but if people bring mosquito repellent then you're not going to have too much trouble." Neither was he fazed about Delhi belly.

 "The food is always going to be a problem for Australians, the viruses that go around - but you get viruses in Australia, you get viruses everywhere," Gayle said. "You have just got to put up with that." Of more concern to Gayle was his Indian lawn bowlers eclipsing Australian on the fake grass arena - the first time Commonwealth Games bowls medals will be decided on a synthetic surface. "There is a major dust problem here because of the construction site and they would never have been able to grow the grass ... and summer here gets up to 50 degrees so grass is going to find it very hard to survive," he said. "A lot of the Australian players have been friends of mine for years, so just because I'm playing Australia doesn't mean they're going to be winning. "My job here is to coach India to medals and hopefully we'll do that." -AAP
Source: Sydney Morning Herald