Knight Riders Look to Maintain Winning Momentum

Kolkata: A confident Kolkata Knight Riders would look to maintain their winning momentum after victories in their first two matches and avert the heartbreak two years ago when they take on a wounded Chennai Super Kings in their Indian Premier League match at Eden Gardens on Tuesday.

In the inaugural edition in 2008, KKR had beaten Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers in their first two matches - the same two sides they had beaten this year - only to see suffer defeat at the hands of CSK before crashing to a string of losses and never really recover from there.

The celebrations and jigs by Shah Rukh Khan then suddenly came to an end as KKR went on to finish sixth out of eight teams in IPL I, a story that still rankles principal owner Shah Rukh Khan and captain Sourav Ganguly.

KKR have beaten defending champions Deccan Chargers and runners-up Royal Challengers Bangalore in their first two matches and would now to look not to repeat the 2008 experience by beating Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men.

The team think-tank seemed to be extra cautious this time as there have been restrained celebration from the team boss Shah Rukh even after their two consecutive wins.

"We have enough celebration in the first IPL and the hangover still remains. Hope to get some more wins and we will celebrate," said Ganguly following their facile seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Team news

Kolkata Knight Riders: While the threat of Matthew Hayden and his Mongoose bat looms large, Kolkata will be eager to get Shane Bond going in the third season. He finished as New Zealand's top wicket-taker in the recently-concluded ODI series against Australia with nine wickets at 21, and rather than replacing Charl Langeveldt.

Squad (from): SC Ganguly (capt), VR Aaron, AB Agarkar, AB Dinda, Eklak Ahmid, RS Gavaskar, CH Gayle, BJ Hodge, Iqbal Abdulla, M Kartik, HH Khadiwale, CK Langeveldt, BB McCullum (wk), AD Mathews, BAW Mendis, CR Pathak, CA Pujara, WP Saha (wk), OA Shah, I Sharma, LR Shukla, MK Tiwary, G Vignesh

Chennai Super Kings: Makhaya Ntini has been out of favour with the South African selectors but recently played his part in Warriors' Pro20 title triumph in the domestic circuit with a decisive opening spell. With Chennai's pacemen looking suspect, Dhoni might be tempted to draft him in and capitalise on his freshness

Squad (from): MS Dhoni (capt & wk), R Ashwin, HK Badani, S Badrinath, GJ Bailey, L Balaji, C Ganapathy, MS Gony, ML Hayden, MEK Hussey, SB Jakati, AB Karthik, JM Kemp, JA Morkel, M Muralitharan, M Ntini, JDP Oram, PA Patel (wk), NLTC Perera, SK Raina, T Thushara, S Tyagi, M Vijay

Stats and trivia

• Kolkata will hope Angelo Mathews' contributions only get better. He has a batting average of 65.00 and has five wickets from two games at 9.20 and a measly economy rate of 5.75.
• Kolkata were thumped by Chennai by nine wickets in the first IPL clash and lost by three runs via the D/L method at home.
• Fortunes turned around in South Africa with Kolkata winning by seven wickets at Centurion, while the earlier encounter was washed out.
• Kolkata possess the two highest run-scorers in Twenty20 cricket. Hodge has 2547 runs in 77 innings at a strike-rate of 129 and David Hussey has scored 2355 runs at a strike-rate of 139.

Match facts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (14:30 GMT)