While the Kolkata Knight Riders have managed to rope in some big names in cricket like Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum, Punjab’s Kings XI haven’t been quite so fortunate. But nevertheless it will be foolish to consider them any less formidable than the former; as last year’s semi-finalists, the Kings XI are still a daunting challenge.

Their biggest and priciest buy for this year’s second season has been England’s batsman Ravi Bopara, at $450,000. But the key for the Kings XI still lies in the hands of last year’s players: In Season 1, Australian opener Shaun Marsh worked wonders for the team. If he can keep up that level of performance this year too, the Kings XI will have little left to worry about. In addition, the team can boast of Kumara Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. This Sri Lankan duo has been indispensable to the Sri Lankan team for years, and through the first season of the IPL has proved indispensable for the Kings XI as well. All of them along with Australian Luke Pomersbach have put together a strong batting line up. The team will however have to do without Ramnaresh Sarwan who did not extend his contract.Perhaps the most crucial player for this Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia owned team will be Yuvraj Singh, who also leads the team. His eye catching performances last year were what took his team so far. This year too it is hoped that Yuvraj, who loves batting in South Africa, will continue pillaring his team the same way.

If there is anything that could render the team weak, it is their bowling attack which somehow does not have the same blaze that the batting line up can boast of: especially since West Indian speedster Jerome Taylor had to be counted out because of an injury, and Sreesanth had to drop out after a stress fracture in his lower back. But the management has included a South African Bowler, Yusuf Abdullah, who could prove very useful to the team, considering that he is based here in South Africa.

Another vital aid inclusion to the team is David Nosworthy who is the head coach of the South African team, The Lions. His in-depth knowledge of the pitches and South African conditions will only help the Kings XI prepare better.
Source – cricket360.com

Kings XI Punjab failed to score 19 off the last over as they lost to Chevrolet Warriors by 10 runs in their warm-up T20 match.

Set a target of 152 to win, Kings XI Punjab could only manage 141 for six as they lost wickets at regular intervals at Sahara Oval St George’s Park.

Australian Simon Katich (12), Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara (16) and Englishman Ravi Bopara (24) all got starts before losing their wickets.

It was left to middle order batsman Taruwar Kohli to take the charge and he brought Kings XI close to the target with 19 runs needing off the last over off Warren Bell.

Kohli’s partner at the other end Karan Goel raised hopes for Kings XI when he smashed a straight six from the first ball of ultimate over to leave the equation at 13 off the remaining five deliveries.

However, destiny had other things in stored as Kohli was run out by wicketkeeper Davy Jacobs two balls later, and Bell was bang on his task, conceding only two singles in the remaining three deliveries to give see his side home.

Kohli made 36 runs off 26 deliveries which was studded with two fours and equal number of sixes.

For Chevrolet Warriors, pacer Bell was the most successful bowler, scalping the wickets of Katich and Bopara for 22 runs while Jon-Jon Smuts took the wicket of dangerous Sangakkara.

Earlier, VRV Singh picked four for 24 to restrict the Warriors to 151 for five after the South African side were asked to bat first with Colin Ingram hitting an unbeaten half century (57).

Shoddy fielding was the order of the day for Kings XI as they dropped as many as five catches.

The Warriors were quick to capitalise on the errors and Ingram played some delightful strokes en route his 57-run innings, although he was lucky to have survived after being bowled off a no-ball by Vikramjit Malik.

He faced 43 balls and stroked five fours and two sixes in his innings.
Source – espnstar.com

The camaraderie and friendship that developed between players of different countries during the Indian Premier League may one day make the role of match referees redundant, feels Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan captain and one of the star performers for King’s XI Punjab.

“Hopefully, it will bring a day when the match referee is not needed to have a look at the games,” Sangakkara said on the eve of IPL 2, which gets under way in South Africa on Saturday.

In an interview with the ICC website, Sangakkara said that the greatest experience for him in the first edition of IPL, apart from playing some excellent cricket, was: “we’re also playing with and against not just your usual opponents but also with your own teammates”.

A top wicketkeeper-batsmen in world cricket today, Sangakkara has his erstwhile skipper Mahela Jayawardene as his teammate in IPL, while their team is skippered by India’s Yuvraj Singh.

Holding forth on a range of subjects including the Twenty20 World Cup in June, Sangakkara says he does not see the five-week-long IPL as an overkill of the game. “I think you always have to balance things out. If you don’t play the IPL then we [Sri Lanka] have no cricket and we’d just be training at the nets and doing all our preparation work – but there is nothing like match practice. So I think the players will be well prepared having played the IPL to go into the Twenty20 World Cup. The conditions, however, will be different in England.”

On the issue of too-much-cricket debate, Sangakkara felt that it was not going to change in near future. “It’s going to be a very hard workload especially for bowlers, but it gives countries ideal opportunities to test their bench strength where they can rotate players and make sure that the best XI is always in the best physical and mental shape – and at the same time give exposure to the fringe players who need the opportunity and exposure to show everyone what they can do and try to break into the national side.”
Source – gulfnews.com

Kings XI Punjab coach Tom Moody knows first-hand how passionate India’s cricket fans were about the inaugural Indian Premier League tournament.
And the Australian believes there’s a “lot of intrigue” among local fans about the second version of the Twenty20 tournament to be played in South Africa after organisers made the late switch from India for security reasons.

Moody, who coached Sri Lanka to the 2007 World Cup final, has assembled a strong line-up to represent Punjab including Sri Lankan stars Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene for the tournament starting this weekend.

But some of his Australian players such as Brett Lee, James Hopes and Shaun Marsh are only expected to be available for the last two weeks after touring with Australia to Dubai for the one-day series against Pakistan.

Elsewhere the Australian flavour is evident across all eight franchises, including five Australian coaches – Moody, Delhi’s Greg Shipperd, Kolkata’s John Buchanan, his opposite in coaching philosophy, Rajasthan Royals captain-coach Shane Warne and Deccan’s Darren Lehmann.

Warne admits his team’s title defence will suffer through having last year’s player of the tournament Shane Watson on national duties in Dubai.

While Moody says it’s very hard to pick a winner this year given the way top players will float in and out of their franchise teams, the reaction of the cricket public is also tough to predict.

It’s believed several teams were keen to play as many games in Durban as possible given the large Indian population in the beachside city.

Hulking Queenslander Matthew Hayden has already been surfing Durban’s warm waters in preparation for his campaign with the Chennai Super Kings.

They’ll be captained by India’s M.S. Dhoni, which won’t hurt Chennai’s attempts to win over Durban fans.

“It’s going to be interesting,” Moody said at the Kings XI team’s training base in Port Elizabeth this week.

“We play six games in Durban, a large percentage of our games in an area where it’s heavily populated by an Asian community.

“We’ve picked up (left-arm quick) Yusuf Abdulla who’s from Durban and has an Asian heritage -we may get a connection with the Durban fans through that.

“Particularly in places like Durban there’s going to be a strong following and I think there’s a lot of intrigue out there too – It has really captured people’s imagination.”

Moody, the Western Australia state coach, is proud to be part of Australia’s colonisation of the cricketing world, as shown by the country’s off-field dominance in the IPL.

“That has been a bit of a trend over the last decade or so in world cricket,” Moody says.

“We’ve seen a lot of Aussie coaches in international positions.

“I was in Sri Lanka, John Dyson is in the West Indies, Greg Chappell was in India (and Geoff Lawson was in Pakistan).

“There has been a lot of Australian influence in coaching and I think that goes with the success of the Australian cricket team over the past two decades.”

The IPL claim tickets for Saturday’s opening double-header in Cape Town between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, and Rajasthan Royals versus Royal Challengers Bangalore, were sold out within hours of going on sale.

“In South Africa, I think there’s a lot of intrigue just purely in the cricket and how suddenly all these international cricketers are coming into one competition,” Moody added.

“It’s not a World Cup, it’s not anything of that nature. But it’s a unique format to be enjoyed.”
Source – foxsports.com.au

Soft drink major PepsiCo today said its newly-launched drink Nimbooz has become the official beverage sponsor of the IPL franchisee team Kings XI Punjab.
The IPL tournament will be held in South Africa from 18 April.
“We are thrilled to announce the association of Nimbooz with the Kings XI in IPL’ 09. Nimbooz is proud to associate itself with such … a dynamic team and we hope this association gives all its fans many refreshing moments to cheer about,” PepsiCo India Executive Director Marketing Punita Lal said in a statement.
Through this partnership, Nimbooz have gained the exclusive pouring rights at home matches besides being the official beverage for the Kings XI, the company said.
It has also got the branding rights on the players’ uniform with the logo at the back. “Nimbooz branding will be displayed on the uniforms of the Bhangra cheerleaders as well as in that of the ball boys,” it said.
Besides, the company has also launched a marketing initiative ‘Nimbooz Highway Gadi’, in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal, offering consumers to buy scratch cards and win a trip to South Africa.
Source – livemint.com