Kochi Tuskers face strong Royal Challengers

Agencies

New Delhi, 09 April 2011: The new entrant in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Kochi Tuskers Kerala, will have a job in their hands when they face strong Royal Challengers Bangalore in their first encounter in Kochi on Saturday.

 

Kochi, one of the two new teams in this year’s IPL, will be led by Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene with Geoff Lawson being the coach. Their batting department is a combination of youth and experience, orthodox and pure unconventional type of batters.

 

The likes of skipper Jayawardene, VVS Laxman and former England batsman Owais Shah provide the solidarity to the side, while New Zeland’s Brendon McCullum and Australian Michael Klinger can take the attack to the opposition from the outset.

 

All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who was suspended last year by the IPL, is making a comeback and will be eager to prove himself. On the other hand, Bangalore look to be the more balanced side, at least on paper.

 

 

Challengers, who will be led by Daniel Vettori in season four - their fourth skipper in as many years - have a formidable battting line up with the likes of AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Virat Kohli and Saurabh Tiwary in their ranks.

 

Dilshan, after a brilliant World Cup where he finished as the tournament’s top scorer, is most likely to open the innings for Challengers.

 

In bowling department the two teams look even. Bangalore’s bowling will be spearheaded by Zaheer Khan, while for Kochi S Sreesanth and RP Singh will share the new ball.

 

In the spin department, if Bangalore have got the best left-arm spinner around in Daniel Vettori then Kochi have the services of spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan, who is the highest wicket taker in both ODIs and Tests.

 

Squads:

 

Kochi: Mahela Jayawardene (Captain), VVS Laxman, S Sreesanth, Ravindra Jadeja, Kedar Jhadav, Ramesh Powar, Tanmay Srivastava, Rudra Pratap Singh, Vinay Kumar, Deepak Chougle, Parthiv Patel, Vincent Gomez, Sushant Marathe, Brad Hodge, John Hastings, Brendon McCullum, Thisara Perera, Owais Shah, Steven Smith, Steve O’Keefe, Muttiah Muralitharan and Michael Klinger.

 

Bangalore: Daniel Vettori (Captain), AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Muralidharen Gautam, Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Virat Kohli, Charl Langeveldt, Abhimanyu Mithun, Dirk Nannes, Ryan Ninan, Asad Pathan, Luke Pomersbach, Nuwan Pradeep, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rilee Rossouw, Saurabh Tiwary, Johan van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar, Mayank Agarwal, Sreenath Aravind, BN Bharath, Raju Bhatkal, Abrar Kazi and Arun Karthik.