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| Today IPL Match |
Kolkata lost their match to Chennai Super Kings by two runs while Deccan were handed an eight-wicket defeat by inaugural IPL winner Rajasthan Royals.
For Kolkata, it will be their first home match without their icon player Sourav Ganguly and it will be interesting to see how the spectators respond to this change.
In the last match against Chennai, Kolkata were all set to win the match but a middle-order collapse and poor decision making by new skipper Gautam Gambhir cost them the match. They also dropped as many as three catches.
But after the match Gambhir sounded positive and said the team needs to work only on their catching.
"I think we tried our best. We played some good cricket. There's lot of quality in this team we bowled very well, fielded well. Apart from dropping catches, we did well. All this is part of the game, we'll just have to try and improve on our catching," said Gambhir.
In Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Eoin Morgan and talented youngsters like Manoj Tiwary and Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Kolkata seems to have everything they need to win the match.
On the other hand, second-edition IPL winners Deccan failed in all three departments and were completely outclassed by Rajasthan on Saturday.
For their new skipper, Kumar Sangakkara it will be a tough task to fill into the shoes of former captain Adam Gilchrist, who provided a top and third place finish in IPL-2 and 3.
The batting department looks pretty weak especially after the departure of batting stars like Gilchrist, Rohit Sharma and Andrew Symonds
Compared to their batting, Deccan's bowling looks pretty strong. In Dale Steyn and India discard Ishant Sharma they have good new ball bowlers.
In the spin department, Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha will be their obvious choice. But except Ishant, all the other bowlers were found struggling against Chennai.
It remains to be seen what changes both teams come up with after learning their lessons in their opening matches.
Teams: (from)
Kolkata: Gautam Gambhir (c), Manvinder Bisla, Jacques Kallis, Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Eoin Morgan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Rajat Bhatia, Iqbal Abdulla, Laxmipathy Balaji, Sarabjit Ladda, Ryan ten Doeschate, Shreevats Goswami, Jaydev Unadkat, Pradeep Sangwan, Shami Ahmed, Shakib-al-Hasan, Brad Haddin, Brett Lee, James Pattison
Deccan Chargers: Kumar Sangakkara (c/wk), Shikhar Dhawan, Ishank Jaggi, Bharat Chipli, Jean—Paul Duminy, Daniel Christian, Dwaraka Ravi Teja, Dale Steyn, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Cameron White, Ashish Reddy, Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, Akash Bhandari, Kedar Devdhar, Manpreet Gony, Harmeet Singh, Michael Lumb, Chris Lynn, Ishan Malhotra, Jaydev Shah, Sunny Sohal, Rusty Theron, Arjun Yadav.
Sources: http://www.sportal.co.in
