IPL Kolkota Knight Riders
The biggest USP for the Kolkata Knight Riders side is the owner himself. Shah rukh Khan has the capability in him, to pull the crowds to the ground by the virtue of his persona, something that can be easily gauged by the fact that the Kolkata Knight Riders’ team was the first one to release their website – and it is a jazzy one at that – and also their team song. Needless to say, Shah rukh has featured in the video himself.
The Kolkata Knight Riders team is actually not owned by Shah rukh alone, it also has Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta as the co-owners of the same. The holding company for the same is Red Chillies Entertainment. RCE spent almost $76 million to buy the team rights, where as it spent another approximately $5 million to buy its players. Sourav Ganguly is the team’s icon player, and is being paid $1.1 million for the same!
Kolkata Knight Riders’ biggest strength lies in the captain-coach combination itself. Sourav Ganguly has been arguably India’s best captain ever, where as the coach John Buchanan has been the best ever – at least in terms of results, and not taking Shane Warne into consideration – in the world. Add that to a Ricky Ponting, Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum, the Knight Roders has a batting lineup par excellence. The bowling department is well served too. Ishant Sharma and Umar Gul form the pace attack, where as Murali Kartik, Iqbal Abdullah, David Hussey and Chris Gayle would be rolling their arms over. Ishant Sharma’s growth as a pace bowler would be worth watching too. One would have added the name of one Shoaib Akhtar to the lineup as well, but his ban from international cricket has robbed the spectators’ chances of watching the bowler bowl live in front of the Indian audiences. Shah rukh was most disappointed hearing the news of Akhtar’s ban and even went upto the extent of requesting IPL chief Lalit Modi to allow Akhtar to play despite PCB’s ban. The request has been politely turned down.
Having said that, Ganguly’s best ever days as captain came when he had a young team, ready to grasp, absorb and assimilate what he did. With huge personalities like Ponting and Gayle a part of the line up, it may just not be a walk in the park for the captain. Another problem that has hit the team is the absence of Chris Gayle as one of the players due to injury. Gayle would have been a big boon for the KKN team, with aggressive batting as an opener, and more than useful, off spin in a format where spinners may just hold the key.
All in all, this is a team which has great individuals, but whether they gel as a single, cohesive unit is a question that would be answered over the next few days. This may also be one team that enjoys more home advantage than the others, with its almost 100,000 spectators intimidating the opposition away!
