Kolkata Knight Riders are leading the points table of the DLF IPL tournament with two wins from two matches.

The Knight Riders team is confident of maintaining their winning momentum to win the DLF IPL tournament.

According to Kolkata captain Sourav Ganguly, “We have started well and hope to continue this trend.” Owner Shah Rukh Khan is also of the same opinion. He says, “We have to continue to do well in the coming matches.”

In the opening match of the DLF  IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders squashed Bangalore Royal Challengers by handing them a 140 runs defeat in the match played at Bangalore. Bangalore Royal Challengers is owned by liquor barron Dr Vijay Mallya, who is also the owner of Force Indian F1 team. Bangalore Royal Challengers is led by Rahul Dravid, who is absent from the Indian one day team at the moment. Royal Challengers came back into the tournament with a win over Mumbai Indians on Sunday, I am sure much to the relief of poor Rahul Dravid.

In the second match of Kolkata Knight Riders, the Hyderabad Deccan Chargers had to bite the dust, the Hyderabad franchisee owned by the Deccan Chronicle on Sunday. Okay, it was not an easy victory for Kolkata, but they won it in the end. The two victories are keeping the team up in high spirits.

Shah Rukh Khan said, “Our coach has told the players that they have to deliver the best to succeed in the tournament. The team has to work hard.”

Looking at the matches so far, the only team which seemed to have a considerable advantage over their opponents is the Chennai Super Kings led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is having a good run of luck. One can say the same about Shah Rukh Khan. It will be interesting to watch whose luck holds out.

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.

Brendan McCullum, who opened with a distinctly scratchy Sourav Ganguly, is now at 113 runs off 59 balls. In this blistering innings, he distincly overshadowed all his batting partners, whether its a Ganguly or a Ricky Ponting. McCullum hit 8 fours and 8 sixes – and if he continues, may hit a few more!