Kolkata Seek to End Losing Streak

Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders' skipper Gautam Gambhir must have spent a sleepless night, not because their match against the Mumbai Indians finished just before midnight on Wednesday, but for his inability to arrest the side's free fall this season.

After suffering three crushing defeats on the road (vs RR, RCB and KXIP), Gambhir and the KKR team management had been banking on the three consecutive matches on home turf to put their fumbling campaign back on track, but with CSK and MI turning on the heat at the Eden Gardens, the Knights now find themselves languishing in the bottom third of the table as the T20 league nears its halfway mark.

With just four points in their kitty from seven matches, KKR need a morale-boosting victory against Kings XI Punjab on Friday to remain in the mix. In spite of the reverses against CSK and MI, the defending champions will start as the favourites against a side that has blown hot and cold so far.

If KXIP find themselves in fifth spot on the points table, two rungs above KKR, it is because they have punched above their weight to snatch a couple of improbable wins.

KXIP have their task cut out as they face KKR, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings one after the other in away matches. The biggest advantage of KXIP is that, unlike KKR, their relatively "unknown" domestic cricketers have chipped in with useful contributions to pull off victories against higher-rated opponents.

Players like Mandeep Singh and Manan Vohra have provided good support to David Miller and David Hussey.

Teams:

Kolkata: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Manvinder Bisla (wk), Brad Haddin, Brendon McCullum, Brett Lee, Debabrata Das, Eoin Morgan, Iqbal Abdulla, Jacques Kallis, James Pattinson, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Laxmi Shukla, Manoj Tiwary, Pradeep Sangwan, Rajat Bhatia, Ryan ten Doeschate, Sarabjit Ladda, Shakib Al Hasan, Shami Ahmed, Sunil Narine, Yusuf Pathan, Ryan McLaren, Sachithra Senanayake

Punjab: Adam Gilchrist (captain & wk), Azhar Mahmood, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, David Hussey, David Miller, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Gurkeerat Singh, Harmeet Singh, Mandeep Singh, Nitin Saini, Parvinder Awana, Paul Valthaty, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, Rajagopal Sathish, Ryan Harris, Siddharth Chitnis, Sunny Singh, Shaun Marsh, Manan Vohra, Luke Pomersbach, Manpreet Gony, Sandeep Sharma, Aniket Choudhary

Match facts
Friday April 26, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)