The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : KKR to announce captain, squad in SA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 31, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Cricket

KKR to announce captain, squad in SA

Kolkata: Apparently fearing a public outrage after Sourav Ganguly was stripped of sole captaincy role, the Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday said it would announce its skipper and squad for the IPL’s second season in South Africa and not here.

After the conclusion of the six-day training camp at the Eden Gardens here, KKR Director of Cricket Operations John Buchanan refused to announce the squad and the captains stating that they want to keep all options open before they begin their IPL campaign in South Africa from April 18.

In fact, there is confusion over the number of players the Knight Riders will be taking to South Africa.

While Buchanan told media that it would be a 24-member squad, KKR chief executive officer Joy Bhattacharya said the whole squad of 29, including late inclusion Sanjay Bangar, who played for Deccan Chargers last season, might be selected.

Leaving in batches

The players will leave in batches for South Africa with the first lot flying out to Bloemfontein, the base of Knight Riders, on Tuesday night. Ganguly, on the other hand, will leave on April 5.

Meanwhile, the Knight Riders’s ‘big three’ — team owner Shah Rukh Khan, Ganguly and Buchanan — will meet in Mumbai to unveil the team’s new jersey and it is learnt that the hot issue over captaincy will be the main agenda in their discussion.

The Knight Riders final camp, meanwhile, ended at the Eden Gardens on Monday with Ganguly and eleven other cricketers taking part in the training that lasted about three hours.

The 10 foreign players in the team for this season as announced by Buchanan on March 22 are Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Morne van Wyk, David Hussey, Brad Hodge, Charl Langeveldt, Mashrafe Mortaza, Moises Henriques, Ajantha Mendis and Angelo Mathews, who along with Ganguly, Ishant Sharma and Ajit Agarkar are certain to be part of the South Africa-bound squad.

In that scenario apart from these 13, others who are likely to fill up the rest of the eleven places are Bangar, Aakash Chopra, Cheteshwar Pujara, Iqbal Abdulla, Murali Karthik, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Sunny Singh, Wriddhiman Saha, Ashok Dinda, Sourav Sarkar and Shoaib Sheikh. — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport