A spectacular opening ceremony got the IPL off to a smashing start, and the home crowd had reason to cheer before a single ball was bowled, as Rahul Dravid, the captain of the Bangalore Royal Challengers, won the toss. His decision to field, though, was perfectly fine with his opposite number, Sourav Ganguly, who said he would have batted first anyway.
The opening ceremony was replete with high-voltage music and a magnificent laser show, and the indications were that the cricket on offer over the next three hours would be equally splendid. The pitch looks a belter, and both teams have plenty of firepower. Apart from Dravid and Jacques Kallis,
Kolkata will miss Chris Gayle, who hasn't arrived yet, but they still have a star-studded batting line-up, with Ganguly, Ricky Ponting, David Hussey and Brendon McCullum all in the mix. They also brought in Wriddhiman Saha, the wicketkeeper, and Debabrata Das, the legspin bowler, as their local players. Gayle's absence meant McCullum would open with Ganguly, and get an opportunity to make early use of what looks like an excellent track.
Bangalore 1 Praveen Kumar, 2 Wasim Jaffer, 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 Rahul Dravid (capt), 5 Virat Kohli, 6 Cameron White, 7 B Akhil, 8 Mark Boucher (wk), 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Ashley Noffke, 11 Sunil Joshi.
Kolkata 1 Brendon McCullum (wk), 2 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 David Hussey, 5 Debabrata Das, 6 Mohammad Hafeez, 7 Laxmi Ratan Shukla, 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Murali Kartik, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Wriddhiman Saha.
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