Auckland Aces had a dream start in the tournament. The New Zealanders notched up two convincing victories during their qualifying matches © Getty Images
Cape Town: Oct 15, 2012
Kolkata had a disappointing start to their campaign after they were mauled by Delhi comfortably on Saturday night.
Their bowlers did a decent job to restrict Delhi to 160 for eight but it was the failure of the batsmen which would rattle them, especially the top order which contributed three ducks to the total.
Opener Manvinder Bisla, Brendon McCullum and skipper Gautam Gambhir all came a cropper against Delhi and they would have to do a lot of soul-searching before they take the field on Tuesday.
The fact that Kolkata could score only 108 for 7 in 20 overs, despite batting deep, will surely bother Gambhir and the onus would be on him to lead from the front, like he did during IPL V early this year.
Teams:
Auckland Aces: Martin Guptill, Lou Vincent, Azhar Mahmood, Anaru Kitchen, Gareth Hopkins(c&wk), Colin Munro, Colin de Grandhomme, Ronnie Hira, Kyle Mills, Andre Adams, Michael Bates.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Manvinder Bisla (wk), Gautam Gambhir (c), Brendon McCullum, Jacques Kallis, Yusuf Pathan, Manoj Tiwary, Rajat Bhatia, Shakib Al Hasan, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Sunil Narine, Pradeep Sangwan.
