Daijiworld Media Network

Chandigarh, Apr 18 : Welcome to the match between Punjab and Kolkata from Mohali. This is a very special day for the IPL. On this day exactly five years ago, the first match of the IPL was played between Bangalore and Kolkata at the Chinnaswamy stadium.

April 18th, 2008, will be remembered as the day Brendon McCullum smashed the highest individual score in the history of T20s. He smashed an unbeaten 158 and got the IPL off to a dazzling start.

Now, five years later, Kolkata are struggling for consistency. Will they manage to win against Punjab today? Stay tuned for the toss and the team updates.

Kings XI Punjab have won the toss and elected to bat

Gilchrist: We've trained hard and we're playing the same opponent twice in a row, which is good. Looks like a really nice track at the moment. Nothing is over until the last ball, the last few results have been extraordinary. It's an even battle now between all teams. More grass on this than the other wickets in India, but it's not as much as a couple of games back. It's not a traditional Indian wicket. Valthaty returns for Bipul Sharma.

Gambhir: The last game is history and we have to move on. We have potential in the dressing room. We can't end up losing such matches as we did recently. We have to be strong at times and have to turn it around. We would have bowled first. Hopefully we do well in the first 6 overs. We've not played as a unit. Sometimes the bowlers have done a good job but the batsmen have not complemented them. I thought we should have won the previous game but hope to turn it around. McCullum and Lee replace Shakib and ten DOeschate.

McCullum: Remember the day (4 years ago, when he smashed 158 against RCB). It was an amazing day and to get the result for the team was fantastic, hopefully can do that again today. It's about momentum which builds up through the innings. Many people around the world have played such innings, there are a lot of match winners in this tournament who have done that. We expected to win the previous game and we were in it for 95% of the game. It's important to take positives from the game and we spoke about it. Happy for the other New Zealand players who are doing well in the tournament.

Teams:

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

Kings XI Punjab (Playing XI): Adam Gilchrist(w/c), Paul Valthaty, Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Mandeep Singh, Paras Dogra, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, Bhargav Bhatt, Harmeet Singh