Daijiworld Media Network

Cuttack, Apr 22 : Hello and welcome to the encounter between Kolkata and Hyderabad. There was news of a slight drizzle about an hour ago at Cuttack but that has cleared out now and we should be in for a complete game of cricket. Gambhir's men are fresh off a victory against Punjab and are up against a side that are yet to register their first win of the tournament. Sangakkara's side has put on some good totals in the tournament so far but their lacklustre bowling and appalling fielding has let them down. It wouldn't be unfair to pit Kolkata as the favourites in this clash, but then again a few inspired performances is all Hyderabad needs to turn things around

Kolkata Knight Riders have won the toss and elected to field

Gambhir: I think we have been playing some good cricket and some bad cricket as well. Our record should have been four wins out of the last four games. In this format you can't take any team lightly. We just try to get the right combination. We try and see who can encash on those first 6 overs and we think Brendon can do that well while Kallis gives us stability in the middle order. Cuttack is always a good wicket so we are going to bowl well and chase down the target. We have the same overseas players as last time.

Sangakkara: The guys have just got to take a hard look at themsevles. They need to take pride in playing for the franchise. I think it's strange, when we have put on a low score our bowling has been exceptional but we haven't put together a complete all round performance. We were thinking of batting first anyway. We will make sure we get a good total on the board, as Gambhir said this is a good wicket. Cameron White comes in for Christian.

Teams:

Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Brendon McCullum, Gautam Gambhir(c), Manvinder Bisla(w), Jacques Kallis, Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Rajat Bhatia, Debabrata Das, Sunil Narine, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Brett Lee

Deccan Chargers (Playing XI): Kumar Sangakkara(c), Shikhar Dhawan, Parthiv Patel(w), Cameron White, Jean-Paul Duminy, Ishank Jaggi, Ankit Sharma, Amit Mishra, Dale Steyn, Anand Rajan, Veer Pratap Singh