With the dust on India’s ICC World Cup campaign — which ended in the semifinals — having settled down, the country is now ready for the world’s most riveting cricket league with a star cast from across the globe.
Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma will cross swords leading their respective sides Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians in the opener at the Eden Gardens here on Wednesday.
Gambhir will look to stretch the defending champion’s record of nine successive wins in the last season that climaxed in the title for KKR.
With Mumbai Indians also looking for a positive start, the match will be the ideal launch of the cricketing carnival that will grip the nation for about two months. Fans will, however, pray that the prediction of rain by the Met department does not come true.
Crowd supportRohit is likely to draw some extra cheers from the crowd despite being the opposition team skipper.
The ODI world record that Rohit created with his hurricane 264 against Sri Lanka here last November has already made him a darling of the Eden crowd.
“I will try to take the confidence of that innings into the match. But I would like to stick to the present and contribute in a way that secures a positive start for the team,” Rohit said on Tuesday. Mumbai Indians has reorganised its team, assembling a gritty group of players this season under head coach Ricky Ponting.
The two-time World Cup-winning Australia captain has set the team on an aggressive mode true to his philosophy, making the 2013 champion a reformed unit this time.
The addition of Aaron Finch, Parthiv Patel and Unmukt Chand alongside the likes of old hats Ambati Rayudu and Lendl Simmons gives Mumbai Indians depth in batting.
MI’s bowling resources are even stronger with the presence of Lasith Malinga, Vinay Kumar, Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha. West Indian Keiron Pollard, New Zealand’s Corey Anderson, South African Marchant de Lange and Australian Josh Hazlewood give Rohit more options.
Gambhir, like always, has pinned his hopes on the team’s key wicket-taker Sunil Narine. The KKR captain dwelt a lot on the “confidence” of the enigmatic West Indian spinner and said that he was “pretty confident that Narine will get back in old form, especially after remodelling his action.”
With spin being its forte, KKR will aim to pick up most of the points from its home matches.
As it did last season, KKR will look to domestic players like Robin Uthappa (IPL-7 Orange Cap winner), Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Surya Kumar Yadav and the captain himself to prop up the team’s batting.
The bowling, which has South African Morne Morkel, Umesh Yadav, Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav among others, gives the host plenty of options.
