 Indian Premier League - Where cricket meets entertainment
17th Apr 2008 23:00 IST
Manish Kumar
Kolkata Knight Riders: Led by Sourav Ganguly, the designated icon player, Kolkata Knight Riders will represent the city of Kolkata in the IPL.
Kolkata Knight Riders is owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment in partnership with Juhi Chawla and her husband, Jai Mehta.
The logo of the team consists of blazing golden viking helmet against a black background with the name of the team Kolkata Knight Riders written in gold. The main theme of the team is Korbo, Lorbo, Jitbo Re (We will do it, Fight for it, Win it).
The tag line of the team is All the King's Men. The team's official color is black and gold. Black stands for the courage of Maa Kali and gold stands for the spirit of winning.
Led by Ganguly, the batting strength of the Kolkata Knight Riders comprises of West Indian skipper Chris Gayle who currently holds the record for the highest innings in a Twenty20 International, having scored 117 against South Africa in the World Twenty20 Championship, and, to date, is the only batsman to have hit a century in the format. He is currently the only cricketer to have hit centuries in all three formats of international cricket.
Also in their batting arsenal is the most successful captain in world cricket - Ricky Ponting - considered one of the best cricketers in modern cricket. He has scored over 9,500 Test runs at an average near 60, but since the February 2002 tour of South Africa (when he was elevated to the ODI team captaincy) he has scored 24 of his Test centuries and averaged above 74, leading to comparisons with Sir Donald Bradman. Ponting is also Australia's leading ODI run-scorer and century maker he has the second most centuries ever, behind only Tendulkar. In 2007 Cricket World Cup match against South Africa at St Kitts, Ponting became the first Australian to reach 10,000 runs in ODI Cricket and the 7th in world cricket to achieve this distinction.
The bowling attack of the Kolkata Knight Riders will be spearheaded by Shoaib Akhtar (subject to clearance from PCB) aided by Ishant Sharma, Ajit Agarkar and Umar Gul.
Ishant has the credit of delivering the fastest ball ever bowled by an Indian bowler when he clocked 152.6 kph (94.8mph) at Adelaide, Australia versus India on February 17, 2008. Also, in the process, he became first Indian to bowl over 150 kph.
Knight Riders' fortunes will largely depend on how well Gayle, Ponting, Ishant and Akhtar perform along with Ganguly.
The Squad: Sourav Ganguly (Captain), Siddarth Kaul, Wriddhiman Prasanta Saha, Ajit Agarkar, Rohan Banerjee, Aakash Chopra, Debabrata Das, Chris Gayle, David Hussey, Iqbal Abdulla, Murali Kartik, Saurasish Lahiri, Brendon McCullum (Wicketkeeper), Mohammad Hafeez, Ricky Ponting, Cheteshwar Pujara, Salman Butt, Ishant Sharma, Shoaib Akhtar, Laxmi Shukla, Tatenda Taibu (Wicketkeeper), Umar Gul, Yashpal Singh.
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