Team: Kolkata Knight Riders
Captain: Sourav Ganguly
Coach: John Buchanan
Franchisee: Red Chillies Entertainment
Franchise Cost: $79.09 Millions
Most expensive player: Sourav Ganguly – $1,092,500
The Eden Gardens will be home to the Kolkata Knight Riders. The star-studded squad comprises of some of the biggest names in world cricket. Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting, Chris Gayle of the West Indies, Brendon McCullum of New Zealand and rising Indian star Ishant Sharma are on this envious roster. Sourav Ganguly, the Prince of Kolkata, has been accorded Icon Player status and will lead the side.
Owned by the Badshah of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan, the franchise has left no stone unturned while spending on the team’s promotion. The mission and vision statements of the team clearly signify the power and confidence this side will exude. After all, they are the King’s men!
Squad:
Sourav Ganguly (Captain)
Siddarth Kaul
Ajit Agarkar
Rohan Banerjee
Ranadeb Bose
Aakash Chopra
Debabrata Das
Ashok Dinda
Chris Gayle
Brad Hodge
David Hussey
Iqbal Abdulla
Murali Kartik
Saurasish Lahiri
Brendon McCullum (wk)
Mohammad Hafeez
Ricky Ponting
Cheteshwar Pujara
Prasanta Saha
Salman Butt
Ishant Sharma
Laxmi Shukla
Tatenda Taibu (wk)
Umar Gul
Yashpal Singh
Shoaib Akhtar
John Buchanan (Coach)
Home Ground: Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Along with the MCG, the Eden Gardens remains cricket’s answer to the Coliseum. It first hosted a Test back in the days of India’s cricketing infancy, with Douglas Jardine’s team easing to victory inside four days in 1934. Since then, it has become something of a place of pilgrimage for most international cricketers, a chance to strut their stuff in front of the most passionate and vocal crowd in the game. At times though, the fervour has spilled into excess, with riots disrupting matches against the West Indies (1966-67) and Australia (1969-70), and a shameful exhibition of boorishness causing the World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka (1996) to be called off with the visitors on the threshold of victory.
There have been other, better, times too when the verve and energy of the crowd has made it a twelfth man of sorts and stirred India’s finest to great feats, none more so than that hallowed day in March 2001 when VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid set the stage for the greatest come-from-behind victory of modern times, against an Australian team poised for an unprecedented 17th straight Test win. Despite packing in 90,000 on red-letter days, it hasn’t been a lucky charm for India until recently, when the spin wiles of Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble inspired famous victories against Australia and Pakistan.
Source:
CricInfo- IPL Teams (Website)
Official Kolkata Knight Riders Homepage
Official IPL T20 HomePage