Kolkata Knight Riders will begin the defence of their Indian Premier League title against Delhi Daredevils in the IPL 6 opener at Eden Gardens.
Gautam Gambhir and co. will start favorites against Delhi, who have been ravaged by injuries. Kevin Pietersen and Jesse Ryder have been ruled out of the tournament, while Virender Sehwag will miss the first game of the season because of back spasms. Adding to the misery will be the fact that Morne Morkel, their best bowler, will also not feature as he plays for his home side in the South African T20 tournament.
"It is a huge loss when you lose someone like a Morne Morkel," Daredevils coach Eric Simons said. "When you have a quality player like that, a lot of your game plans revolve around that, it is a loss, but we do believe that we have done really well in between the two IPLs to bring more balance to our squad. So I think this year we can be a lot more innovative with our team selection."
Simons believes the absence of some of their star players, opens up the opportunity for some youngsters to show their talents.
"Yes we are missing out on players who we would have loved to have in the side, but this is the perfect opportunity for the youngsters in the side to step up and perform at the grand stage," he added. "We have domestic players who can perform well and it is time for them to show their abilities.
"One of the positives we found in our net session was that Umesh (Yadav) and Irfan (Pathan) bowled well in the last day or so. The fact that they are coming from injuries means that they are also fresh and we would like to take that in our favour. The fact that we have trained well, bowled well, gives us an opportunity to pick different teams for different conditions in the tournament."
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