Daijiworld Media Network

Dubai, Apr 19: Delhi, having suffered a morale sapping loss against Bangalore, run into Kolkata, who opened the tourney with a thumping win. The spin twins, Shakib and Sunil Narine will continue to be Kolkata's strike bowlers although the pace bowling has all the bases covered. Delhi, who are searching for their first win, will have to raise the bar in all departments. Moreover, Kevin Pietersen's finger injury has landed a massive blow on the team.

Kolkata have won the toss and have opted to bat

Karthik: 'KP is getting better. We do not want to rush things. Captaincy is big challenge thrown at me. Things did not go our way in the first game. Looking forward to this game. We would have batted first as well. We will have to make a lot of improvement. We have done the ground work. We have a couple of changes. We have Jaydev Unadkat coming in for Rahul Sharma. Nathan Coulter-Nile replaces Wayne Parnell.'

Gambhir: 'We had a professional start in the first game. This is a new game. We should not be complacent. This stadium gives the look of the Wankhede stadium. It looks a decent wicket. We want to put runs on the board and defend it. It looks dry. It may grip in the second innings and we have three quality spinners. I feel, 140-150 will be a good total.'

Teams:

Delhi (Playing XI): Mayank Agarwal, Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Jean-Paul Duminy, Ross Taylor, Manoj Tiwary, James Neesham, Shahbaz Nadeem, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Mohammed Shami, Jaydev Unadkat

Kolkata (Playing XI): Gautam Gambhir(c), Jacques Kallis, Manish Pandey, Robin Uthappa(w), Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Suryakumar Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Sunil Narine, Morne Morkel

Match Preview:

Kolkata and Delhi have enjoyed contrasting starts in the tournament. The former thumped defending champions, Mumbai, in the first T20 League game of the year while Delhi succumbed timidly against Bangalore. Both teams will be missing key players for the game in Dubai. For Kolkata, Yusuf Pathan will miss out as he has gone back to India for the birth of his child. Kevin Pietersen is still in doubt for Delhi as well.

Kolkata: Jacques Kallis imposed himself completely on the first game and the South African all-rounder has been a key player for Kolkata over the years. They will be pleased with the way Manish Pandey, a new entrant to the set-up, started his sojourn as well. The young right-hander from Karnataka scored briskly to notch up a valuable fifty. They do have more firepower in the batting department with Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa yet to fire. The all-round skills of Shakib Al Hasan will be extremely valuable as well. In the absence of Yusuf Pathan, Debabrata Das could be a straight swap but the batting does look very strong.

Morne Morkel and Sunil Narine were outstanding with the ball in the first game. They will be the key once again but Kolkata do have a well-rounded attack. Vinay Kumar has been in good form in domestic cricket. Shakib Al Hasan and Piyush Chawla pose constant threats in the format. Kolkata will not want to change much from the way they played in the first game.

Delhi: Pretty much nothing went right for Delhi in their opener against Bangalore. Ross Taylor and JP Duminy were forced to rescue the side after the top order was blown away. Nonetheless they will be hoping it was just a one-off. Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik and Manoj Tiwary have been fairly successful in the past and they will have to set up a good base for the rest of the batsmen to follow. Karthik, the stand-in skipper, in the absence of Kevin Pietersen had said that the players are still in the process of understanding their roles. Delhi will need them to gel together quickly before it gets too late.

While there was some promise in the batting, the bowling was completely lacklustre. It is this aspect which will be worrying Karthik a lot. None of the bowlers managed to create an impact. Shahbaz Nadeem and Rahul Sharma have both proven their calibre in previous editions and the attack will revolve around these two. Jayadev Unadkat and Siddarth Kaul are some of the options available in case Karthik looks to change up things but it will be a surprise if he does go in for changes after just one game.

Teams:

Kolkata (From): Gautam Gambhir(c), Manish Pandey, Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Shakib Al Hasan, Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine, Vinay Kumar, Morne Morkel, Kuldeep Yadav, Veer Pratap Singh, Ryan ten Doeschate, Manvinder Bisla, Umesh Yadav, Chris Lynn, Andre Russell, Sayan Mondal, Pat Cummins, Debabrata Das

Delhi (From): Mayank Agarwal, Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Jean-Paul Duminy, Manoj Tiwary, Ross Taylor, James Neesham, Rahul Sharma, Wayne Parnell, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Shami, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jaydev Unadkat, Laxmi Shukla, Kedar Jadhav, Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Shukla, Saurabh Tiwary, Siddarth Kaul, Quinton de Kock, Milind Kumar, HS Sharath, Jayant Yadav