Mark Boucher and Cameron White gave the
Kolkata Knight Riders a fright but their combined effort wasn't enough to stop the
Bangalore Royal Challengers from losing the rain-curtailed match at Eden Gardens on Thursday night by five runs. The start of play was delayed by around 110 minutes because of evening showers, which forced the match to be reduced to 16-overs-a-side.
Both the teams made changes to their playing XI for this match. Zimbabwe's Tatenda Taibu and Delhi's opening batsman Aakash Chopra made their IPL debuts for Kolkata Knight Riders, while Murali Kartik returned to the home team's playing XI. Bangalore Royal Challengers left out Jacques Kallis, Devraj Patil and Misbah-ul-Haq as R Vinay Kumar, Boucher and Shivnarine Chanderpaul came back into the team. The Challengers also had a debutant in J Arunkumar who got an opportunity thanks to the injury to opening batsman Wasim Jaffer.
Sourav Ganguly, captain of the Knight Riders elected to bat, and would have been a concerned man as his team was reduced to 46 for 3 in the eighth over. Bangalore Royal Challengers' bowling spearhead Dale Steyn struck the first blow for his team when he trapped Chopra plumb in front in the third over of the match. Zaheer Khan then had Chopra's opeing partner Brad Hodge caught in the deep to become the highest wicket-taker in the Indian Premier League. Hodge's dismissal reduced the hosts to 20 for 2 in the fourth over.
