Ganguly goes up against Kolkata

Match facts

Thursday, May 19, Navi Mumbai
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)

	This time, he will be up against men wearing this jersey

Big Picture

Kolkata Knight Riders need to win one of their two remaining games to be guaranteed a place in the play-offs, mathematical miracles notwithstanding. Sourav Ganguly - the biggest player to emerge from their city and a name that was synonymous with their franchise until the most recent player auction - has a chance to stop them. It happens only in the IPL.

Yet, both Ganguly and his team-mates at Pune Warriors will know that they go in as rank outsiders. Kolkata have been consistent through the season, with their big-ticket players pulling their weight at different stages. The domestic Indian players have played their part too, especially Iqbal Abdulla and Manoj Tiwary. Pune, on the other hand, are out of contention after suffering an early-season slump that spanned seven successive losses. Ganguly looked like a batsman who hadn't held a bat in 12 months in his first outing, and fell for a duck in his second. Does Pune's campaign have a sting in its tail? Kings XI Punjab will be hoping it does, since a Kolkata defeat will keep their chances alive.

Form guide (most recent first)

Kolkata: LWLWW (fourth in points table)
Pune: LWWLL (ninth in points table)

Team talk

Kolkata have seemed keen to open with Eoin Morgan, though the move has had little success. Given the lack of muscle in the middle order - excluding Yusuf Pathan - Gautam Gambhir might consider moving himself up the order.

Pune will mull over the option of replacing Bhuvneshwar Kumar with Shrikant Wagh, who was impressive at the DY Patil in the initial part of the season. Will Ganguly continue to play at No. 3?

In the spotlight

Time is running out for Robin Uthappa to deliver returns on the tremendous investment Pune made on him. He has scored 252 runs in 12 innings, but has not produced a single half-century. He has paraded all his shots this season, without displaying the right kind of shot-selection.

Brett Lee has set up a few sparkling mini-battles with Uthappa in the past - a league match in the 2007 CB series, and a 2010 IPL fixture being the most notable. There's something irresistible about a contest between a fast bowler who likes to bowl straight, and a batsman who likes to hit it back, just as straight. Who will triumph when they clash on Thursday?

Prime numbers

• Kolkata haven't hit enough sixes this year. Tiwary, with 12, is their leading six-hitter but he is only 14th on the overall list. Yusuf has only managed 11.
  
• Rahul Sharma is the third-highest wicket-taker this season, with 16 wickets. He has also been the most economical bowler (5.33 per over) among those who have at least six wickets.

The chatter

"We need one win from two games and that's all I will be telling the team. I'm not obsessed with the points table. Our priority right now is to get the two points on Thursday."
Can Pune deny Gautam Gambhir the two points he seeks?

Determined Chennai surge to top spot

Wriddhiman Saha was an unlikely top-scorer for Chennai Super Kings

The MA Chidambaram Stadium continued to be a fortress that couldn't be breached, as Chennai sealed a seventh straight win at home to end Kochi Tuskers Kerala's maiden IPL campaign on a disappointing note. The win for the hosts was the only constant on an otherwise unusual day in Chennai. To begin with, it was not oppressively hot on a summer's day; the pitch played slow and low and Kochi bowled with discipline to limit a power-packed batting line-up to a gettable total. The home side found an unlikely hero in Wriddhiman Saha, who seized on a promotion and an early let-off to play a decisive cameo. Lapses by Parthiv Patel, the replacement captain, with the gloves, and Kochi's struggles to step it up in the chase, meant Chennai's score of 152 was more than adequate.

For those who witnessed Adam Gilchrist's ruthless onslaught against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday, this was a slightly laborious affair. The Kochi bowlers varied their lengths well and did not offer too many scoring opportunities; the seamers refrained from doling out length deliveries, while Muttiah Muralitharan prompted caution. Each time the hosts tried to improvise and go on the attack, they were pegged back by a wicket, earned by Kochi rather than handed out.

Match Meter CSKKTK Runs and wickets: Kochi hit back after bursts from Vijay and Raina to make it 41 for 2 at the end of the sixth over CSKKTK Chennai kept in check: Hyssey departs with the score on 96 in the 15th over, but there is ammunition down the order CSK Finishing on a high: Saha's late surge, including 14 off the final over, takes Chennai past 150 on a tricky pitch CSKKTK A similar pattern: Gnaneswara Rao falls in the seventh over with the score on 45, but that brings together McCullum and Hodge CSK Hosts get ahead: When McCullum falls in the 14th over with the score on 85, and there are no fours or sixes in the next three overs, the game is pretty much decided  Advantage Honours even

M Vijay smashed RP Singh for three boundaries in the third over, but was cleaned up by a perfectly-aimed yorker off the final ball. Suresh Raina was dropped by Parthiv first ball, and Sreesanth, the frustrated party, was made to rue that lapse with two huge sixes over long-on. But the bowler hit back in the same over, when Raina miscued a full toss. S Badrinath smashed a six over midwicket, but was caught brilliantly off the next ball when RP dived full length in the deep to pluck a catch inches from the ground. Saha, though, bucked the trend.

In a contrast to his senior partner Michael Hussey, who was tied down by the steady fall of wickets and his own struggle to push on, Saha infused some urgency in the Chennai innings after surviving a missed stumping by Parthiv. In a clear sign of intent following the second time-out at the end of the 13th over - the scoring rate was fractionally over six at that stage - Saha swept Ravindra Jadeja for six over square leg. In addition to aggressive running between the wickets and an adeptness in rotating the strike, Saha, picked for the Indian tour of West Indies, also indulged in some powerplay. He charged out to Muralitharan to loft him out of the ground and pulled RP into the stands behind deep midwicket to end the Chennai innings on a high.

Kochi needed a big win to keep themselves mathematically alive in this competition, but even the usually dominating Brendon McCullum was forced to exercise restraint against some determined bowling. R Ashwin kept one end locked up with his variations in turn, flight and pace, and sent back Parthiv in his second over. McCullum and Gnaneswara Rao picked up a couple of boundaries each but the innings appeared to stagnate soon after Rao's dismissal. McCullum and Brad Hodge could do little during their stand to get on par with the climbing required-rate. Chennai didn't concede a single boundary in the three overs that followed McCullum's exit at 85 in the 14th over.

Kochi did manage a belated surge with Jadeja and Hodge trying to salvage what they could out of an impending defeat, reducing the margin of the loss to 11 runs - incidentally, the difference in Parthiv's expected target at the toss.