Chennai Super Kings will be the biggest losers as their top stars Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey will depart on April 29.

The already battered Kings XI Punjab will not have the services of fast bowler Brett Lee and Simon Katich, while another struggling team, Deccan Chargers, would have to bid adieu to Andrew Symonds.
Kolkata Knight Riders would loose Ricky Ponting.

The players are leaving to take part in a team training programme ahead of the Carribean tour.
New Zealand stars Jacob Oram would also leave the Chennai Super Kings camp early next month, to be followed by his team mates Daniel Vettori (Delhi Daredevils), and big hitter Brendan McCullum (Kolkata Knight Riders)

With these departures there would be a perceived changes in the fortunes of the teams. South African big hitter Herschelle Gibbs would join the Deccan Chargers, while his skipper Graeme Smith will strengthen the ranks of the resurgent Rajasthan Royals.

Shane Warne will also have the services of Pakistan’s Younis Khan and Sohail Tanvir.

Chennai Superkings can take consolation from the fact that their bowling department will be strengthened with the arrival of Makaya Ntini this week.

Albie Morkel is also slated to join the Chennai Superkings. Will these changes affect the fortunes of the team? Only time will tell.

Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals is not in any great shape either, despite their victory against Kings XI Punjab – but they seem to be getting better alright.

A 9-wicket mauling by Virender Sehwag-led Delhi Daredevils at home ground has raised serious concerns about the cohesiveness of VVS Laxman’s talented bunch, after an initial rap in a shocker of pitch in Eden Gardens by Kolkata Knight Riders.

Nothing has worked so far for the famed Deccan Chargers, who were touted as the most formidable side by bookies, who would have surely changed the odds.

In fact odds are changing fast as the tournament progresses. Chennai Super Kings now emerges as top contenders along with Kolkata Knight Riders, with Delhi Daredevils, Bangalore Royal Challengers and Rajasthan Royals inching forward and Kings XI and Deccan Chargers slipping.

Mumbai Indians would be rated on the basis of their performance against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday.

Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Venugopala Rao, VVS Laxman and big hitter Shahid Afridi were all failures so far for Deccan Chargers.

There were much expectations about the Aussies in particular in Deccan Chargers, with Andrew Symonds fetching the second highest bid of $1.35 million by the hyderabad franchise. Symonds went for 30 runs in an over in a Sehwag rampage and failed with the bat too. All of Adam Gilchrist’s experience did not help the Chargers either in their match against Delhi.

There was no devil in the Rajiv Gandhi stadium as Delhi Darevils captain Sehwag showed and hence Deccan Chargers have no one else to blame than their batting maestros for their abject failure to put up a big score.

While this may not necessarily be a verdict on the team, it requires tremendous grit to come back as a team, which the Deccan Chargers are capable of. Have the defeats affected the Hyderabad team for the worse, or do the battle-scarred veterans pull up their socks in the Deccan Chargers vs Rajasthan Royals match, we will know soon enough.

Shahid Afridi can be pardoned for the match against Delhi Daredevils was his first match, but the burden of expectations would weigh against him as Deccan Chargers take on Rajasthan Royals led by wizard of spin Shane Warne.

There are no demons in the Hyderabad wicket but Shane Warne can turn the ball and do all the tricks in any surface.

Deccan Chargers would have to earmark someone to have a go at him and turn his attention from the field to his own bowling and unsettle Rajasthan Royals. That is easier said than done, but Shahid Afridi might relish taking up that mammoth challenge.

Big hitting Aussie Shane Watson forced bookies to rewrite their priorities after an initial set back as he anchored an brilliant win for his team against the fancied Kings XI Punjab at Sawai Mansingh Stadium the other day.

Skipper Shane Warne would expect a repeat effort, but India discard Mohammad Kaif also has to fire for his team.

Afridi’s Pak team mate Kamran Akmal, now playing for Rajasthan Royals,  announced his intentions in his first match but needs to carry on and bring in some unorthodox shots to unsettle the Deccan Chargers.

Yusuf Pathan is another Rajasthan Royals batsman who has lived dangerously, but building partnerships also is vital in some match scenarios even if that means your strike rate dips. Playing all the 20 overs is vital as VVS Laxman himself admitted after the encounter with Kolkata Knight Riders.

Despite the scars of two successive defeats, Deccan Chargers are the better team in this tussle. Only that they have to bury their past shame, draw upon their collective experience and hit Rajasthan Royals hard. Deccan Chargers are still considered favourites purely on the merit of the treasure trove of talent on their ranks. Only that they have to fire.

Deccan Chargers Team
VVS Laxman, Andrew Symonds, RP Singh, Rohit Sharma, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, Chaminda Vaas, Scott Styris
Chamara Silva.
Rajasthan Royals Team
Mohammad Kaif,Yusuf Pathan,Shane Warne,Munaf Patel,Younis Khan, Justin Langer, Kamran Akmal, Shane Watson, Sohail Tanvir, Morne Morkel, Graeme Smith.

And Afridi is keen to outsmart Brendon McCullum’s 73-ball 158 in IPL. McCullum took 53 balls to score his hundred against Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Shahid Afridi admits that it is not going to be an easy task but doesn’t hide the fact that he wants to give it a try. His skipper Shoiab Malik would play against him when Delhi Daredevils takes on Deccan Chargers.

But you know that cricket has a way of destroying such plans. Twenty20 can be exciting to watch, but the extra risks batsmen take make it tough for them to live long. We have to see how Afridi handles the pressure.

Since the match would be played in Hyderabad, the Deccan Chargers could well have the so-called home advantage, playing in front of the home crowd. The most important thing to be noted here is the presence of Shahid Afridi, the explosive batsman from Pakistan joining the side for tomorrow’s match against the Delhi Daredevils.

The batting line-up of Deccan Chargers looks good on paper consisting of Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Y Venugopal Rao, Rohit Sharma and Ranji players D B Ravi Teja and Kalyan Krishna. Though captain VVS Laxman is not exactly Twenty20 material, one can expect him to score some runs, if he comes to bat in the middle rather than open the batting.

Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds, the Aussie batsmen, are both aggressive and can well score some useful runs for the team. Considering the astronomical figure he got during the auction, Symonds would be readying up to live up to the expectations laid upon him.

Another batsman that could come to the rescue of Deccan Chargers is Shahid Afridi, the explosive Pakistani batsman who can take the match away from the opponents anytime.

Even the bowling line up of Deccan Chargers is quite strong with the likes of  Scott Styris, Chaminda Vaas, R P Singh and the locay boy Pragyan Ojha, who was instrumental in his team’s efforts against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Delhi Daredevils, the Delhi franchisee of the DLF IPL and being led by Virender Sehwag, will have A B de Villiers, Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Asif, Tillakratne Dilshan and Abdul Razzak as the main batters.

The final teams for the game will be selected from:

Deccan Chargers: VVS Laxman (Captain), Scott Styris, Adam Gilchrist (WK), H Gibbs, Andrew Symonds, Sanjay Bangar, Rohit Sharma, Chamara Silva, Y Venugopal Rao, Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Zoysa, Haldhar Das (wk), D Kalyan Krishna, Pragyan Ojha, DB Raviteja, PM Sarvesh Kumar, R P Singh, P Vijay Kumar and Arjun Yadav. Coach: Robin Singh

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (Captain), Gautam Gambhir, Manoj Tiwari, Daniel Vettori, Shoaib Malik, Dinesh Kartik, Glenn McGrath, Mohammed Asif, Ferveez Meharoof, Pradeep Sangwan, Brett Geeves, Rajat Bhatia, Shikar Dhawan, Yo Mahesh, Tillakratne Dilshad, Abdul Razzak, Mithun Manhas, Mayank Tehlan, Amit Mishra, Tejaswi Yadav, A B de Villiers and Yogesh Nagar. Coach: Greg Shipperd.

In order to ensure that a better wicket is prepared for the coming matches, the pitch would be inspected by the IPL’s technical committee and the Cricket Association of Bengal. The pitch was difficult to play for the batsman mainly because of the unexpected rising and falling deliveries from the pacemen.

The pitch also saw Saurav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, the captains of Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers respectively, getting hurt from the rising deliveries.

VVS Laxman Laxman said the erratic behaviour of the Eden Gardens pitch was shocking. “”This sort of wicket would not at all help Twenty20 or for that matter cricket in general,” he said.

Much to the surprise of the Kolkata Knight Riders team members, the Eden Gardens curator apologised to them for preparing such an erratic pitch. After the match, pitch curator Kalyan Mitra went to the Kolkata Knight Riders dressing room and apologised to the team members.

Ricky Ponting, Kolkata Knight Riders batsman, said, “The curator came to our dressing room after the match and apologised to all of us. He has promised a better wicket for our next match as also the five other games the team will play at the Eden later in the tournament.”

Efforts are also on to bring in a pitch specialist from Australia.  Eden Gardens will host its next match on April 29 when it will see Kolkata Knight Riders, the Kolkata franchisee of the DLF IPL being led by Saurav Ganguly and owned by Bollywood badshah Shah Rukh Khan, lock horns with Mumbai Indians, the Mumbai franchisee of DLF IPL being led by Sachin Tendulkar and owned by industrialist Mukesh Ambani.

At the moment, Kolkata Knight Riders is riding high with two wins from two matches and is leading the DLF IPL points table.

After an out-of-the box assault by Brendon McCullum against Bangalore Royal Challengers in the IPL opening clash, Kolkata Knight Riders now take on the most solid team on paper in the DLF IPL Twenty20 tournament – Deccan Chargers led by VVS Laxman.
A team which has Andrew Symmonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, VVS Laxman, Chaminda Vaas and Scott Styris, Deccan Chargers are the most formidable side in this competition, at least in paper.
So Sourav Ganguly and his Kolkata Knight Riders have a task cut out.
Take McCullum’s heroics out of the last match and you would find hardly any difference between the two teams. Sourav wasn’t at his best and Ponting was too far way from convincing. Of course the bowling department did well, thanks largely to the insurmountable total put out by McCullum.
In the event of McCullum getting out early, Kolkata Knight Riders will have to have a Plan B. Law of averages doesn’t favor McCullum performing yet another heroic display, but any thing can happen in Twenty20.
Chris Gayle, who is the top scorer in Twenty20 (internationally recognised matches; IPL is not recognized officially by ICC as an international tournament), would not play due to an injury.
So the Kolkata Knight Riders are heavily dependent on Sourav Ganguly himself and Ricky Ponting.
A packed house is expected at Eden Gardens and that puts pressure on the home team itself, a lot more than Deccan Chargers. That is the burden of expectations that Sourav Ganguly should deal with. The huge crowd will also likely to be antagonistic towards Aussies like Andrew Symonds and to a lesser extent Adam Gilchrist, but these are top performers who have dealt with crowds through out the world. On the captaincy front, Sourav Ganguly has a huge benefit of a superb start as well as the solid backing of strategist and coach John Buchanan and another master skipper in Ricky Ponting. VVS Laxman on the other hand does not really fit the bill having lead Rest of India and Hyderabad teams only, without much to boast about.
Going by the past matches the team winning the toss prefers to bat first and put a solid score on board to defend.
In only one match,  Delhi Daredevils vs Rajasthan Royals, have the chasing team won so far. So toss would be vital.
The interesting contest of the match would be between new Indian pace sensation Ishant Sharma and Australian Andrew Symonds. Remember they are just out of a keen tussle Down Under.
Hyderabad also would miss a big hitter in Heschelle Gibbs, who is tied with a domestic tournament back home.
The Eden track is set to favour batsmen and since the line-up favours Deccan Chargers Kolkata Knight Riders would have to have another McCullum-like performance from some one.
Hyderabad Deccan Chargers have the edge in this contest, bookies say.

Teams:
Deccan Chargers
VVS Laxman, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Nuwan Zoysa, Rohit Sharma, Scott Syris,  Chamara Silva, Chaminda Vaas, R P Singh, Haldhar Das, Pragyan Ojha, P Vijay Kumar, Sarvesh Kumar, Arjun Yadav, D Kalyan Krishna, Y Venugopal Rao.

Kolkata Knight Riders
Brendon McCullum, Sourav Ganguly, David Hussey, Ricky Ponting, Mohammad Hafeez, L R Shukla, Ishant Sharma, Ajit Agarkar, Murali Kartik, Siddharth Kaul, Iqbal Abdulah, Wriddhiman Saha, Rohan Banerjee, Aakash Chopra, Debabrata Das, Sourashish Lahiri, Cheteshwar Pujara, Prasanta Saha, Tatenda Taibu, Yashpal Singh.  
 

Kolkata Knight Riders, owned by Bollywood badshah Shah RUkh Khan, is in scintillating form after their mega victory against the Bangalore Knight Riders. The destructive attitude shown by Brendon McCullum and henceforth the victory over Bangalore Royal Challengers, is sure to attract a lot of attention from the Kolkata cricket fans for SUndays’s match against the mighty Deccan Chargers led by VVS Laxman.

Shah Rukh Khan said, “”At the Eden Gardens, where the matches will be played, we will exhibit two helmets, an 18-carat gold-plated and a diamond studded one, to show the other teams that we are the declared winners. The matches are just child’s play for us.”

SRK continued on the presence of Bollywood beauties at the Eden Gardens, “”I believe it’s my duty to entertain people whether it’s in films or in the IPL matches. Though I am not going to dance at the gallery, I will be present at the Eden (Garden). Rani (Mukherjee), Bipasha (Basu) and Kareena (Kapoor) have verbally confirmed their presence. With Kareena, now-a-days, we get a Saif Ali Khan free. So Saif can also be expected. I will personally try to convince John (Abraham) and Karan (Johar) to fly down as well.”

Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan’s fans club is also doing their bit of entertaining. The have arranged a procession from Hatibagan in central Kolkata to the Eden Gardens. A group of twenty belly dancers will add colours to the procession.

Arnab Roy, joint secretary of Shah Rukh Khan Fans Club, said, “We will also decorate the gallery with Knight Riders flags, banners and festoons. Shah Rukh has promised to help us deck up the gallery.”

Screening of selected matches of Kolkata Knight Riders would be held at various places across the Kolkata city. Kolkata is wearing a mask of excitement with Kolkata cricket fans wearing golden black hoardings and posters of the ‘Knights’ being displayed all across the city.

In the last match of the Kolkataq Knight Riders in Bangalore in which they demolished the Bangalore ROyal Challengers by a huge margin, Knight Riders captain Saurav ganguly had promised that the entertainment would be much larger in Eden Gardens.

After a disapponting start to the tickets sale, its confirmed that the tickets for  the first two Knight Riders matches, on April 20 against Deccan Chargers and April 29 against the Mumbai Indians, are sold out. Eden Gardens Kolkata will host seven of the total 14 matches of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Talking to the media, Andrew Symonds said “I must thank the owners for bidding for me in such a big way. It came as a surprise.” Symonds added that his ambition now is to win the tournament, and that he considers IPL a new frontier in cricket.

Symonds had his own opinion about the rumours and controversies about players who might abandon their national teams and international careers for IPL. There have also been talk of clashing schedules, and players opting for the cash-rich IPL over international games. “This is something that should never happen. I think the cricket boards and the ICC should see to it that there is a window for IPL,” said Symonds regarding the clash between international and IPL assignments.

When asked about sledging – his running battles with Harbhajan Singh ar now legendary – Andrew Symonds said that Twenty20 is very fast and there is no need to sledge.

The logo and anthem of Deccan Chargers wwre also revealed. The logo would be a charging bull. “The Bull signifies strength, power and aggression,” said J. Krishnan, president and CEO of Deccan Chargers.

During the unveiling function, VVS laxman, captain of Deccan Chargers, expressed confidence that his team is a balanced side.

The team also includes foreign players Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa) Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) Scott Styris, Chaminda Vaas ad Nuwan Zoysa (Sri Lanka).
Indian team’s fielding coach Robin Singh will be the coach of Deccan Chargers.

Robin Singh would be assisted by Kawaljit Singh, Shishir Hattangadi and Vijay Mohan Raj.

The Deccan Chargers Hyderabad IPL team is owned by Deccan Chronicle newspaper.

The official Deccan Chargers website can be viewed here.

James Hopes, who plays for Queensland in the Australian league, will join his team mate Brett Lee in the Mohali line-up in the DLF IPL Twenty20 championship.

What is thrilling the 29-year-old James Hopes is the prospect of playing against some of his own team mates in Australian side. James Hopes can take on Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symmonds (Hyderabad IPL), Matthew Hayden (Chennai) and his own captain Ricky Ponting (Kolkata Knight Riders)

James Hopes can also have the opportunity to take on spin legend Shane Warne, with whom his Queensland team mate Shane Watson will line-up.