Both Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers are in the same boat. Having lost their opening round matches in contrasting style, the two combatants will seek to rediscover the winning formula at the Eden Gardens here on Monday, to make an early impact in the Indian Premier League-IV.
The way the Knight Riders lost the opening match to defending champion Chennai Super Kings from a winning position, will force the team's think-tank to rearrange its priority against the season-II champion. To begin with, KKR will have to introspect and choose the right batting order for its captain and mainstay Gautam Gambhir.
The team management promoted the hard-hitting Yusuf Pathan to get some runs and regain the full confidence level. However, his early dismissal put a lot of pressure on the remaining batsmen, especially Eoin Morgan and Gambhir at five and six.
Having restricted CSK for 153 despite some shoddy fielding, KKR rallied remarkably before losing the game by two runs. Even in defeat KKR had many positives to bank upon on the morrow.
Whether KKR, which will go into the first home match of the season, will ring in a change or two will only be known before the game. Many felt Ryan ten Doeschate of The Netherlands could have come in place of Laxmi Ratan Shukla in the last game.
The Dutchman is not only a handy batsman but can also be a dependable bowler, an option the captain may require in case of any crisis.
Sangakkara optimistic
On the eve of the match, Deccan Chargers (DC) skipper Kumar Sangakkara was cautiously optimistic about the team's chances. “Knight Riders is a good team, a very tough opposition,” was his response when asked about the host.
Top-order batting failure apart, DC was a victim of two brilliant individual efforts, Johan Botha with the bat and Siddharth Trivedi with the ball.
The DC captain admitted that it would be hard to recover if a team lost early wickets. “If you lose wickets at the top it becomes very difficult to survive. Even a slight mistake can change the complexion of the game. We have to be on the lookout for those things,” he observed. “It was disappointing to lose the last game. We got off to a great start; it is just that we lost too many wickets too quickly,” he said.
DC has a decent bowling attack; especially its slow bowlers Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra can exploit a slow-paced pitch at the Eden Gardens. Sangakkara hinted that the pitch looked flat and expected the slow bowlers to prosper.
Dale Steyn will lead the pace attack along with Ishant Sharma, who will be up against his former team. With Bengal icon Sourav Ganguly not in the KKR team, the hype surrounding the tournament is grossly missing. Even if a full house assembles to witness the game, DC can get some unexpected crowd support.
