Kolkata Knight Riders will play 14 matches with 7 of them being home matches. The home matches will  be played at Eden Gardens.

The most unfancied and least expensive team in the competition Rajasthan Royals, has outperformed every other team and is currently topping the IPL t20 tables. Shane Warne, Australian legend has transformed a rag-tag team into the team to beat in the competition.

Star players in the other teams haven’t done any justifications to their billings or the huge amounts that they were payed in the T20 tournament. Some lesser paid players have played exceedingly well and won matches for their teams.

Three teams are sharing the second spot – Delhi, Punjab and Chennai. Till about a week ago Chennai with Hayden and Hussey was the team to beat but with the departure of key players is looking a little out of sorts.

Hyderabad Deccan Chargers a much fancied team because of some star players is at the bottom of the heap with just 2 points from 6 matches. Huge amounts paid for Symmonds and Afridi has not brought rich dividends.

West Australian batsmen Luke Pomersbach is one such player. He even offered to play for free in IPL so he gets a chance to exhibit his skills and is eager to convince Tom Moody who incidentally happens to be his Western Australian team coach too. Luke was bought for $54,000 but money is not main motivating factor. He wants a chance to prove himself in the strong IPL Mohali team which has players of Sangarkka and Bret Lee’s calibre. Here’s hoping the best for Luke

New Zealand pace bowler Kyle Mills is another player who was snapped up by the IPL Mohali team. A number of his team mates didn’t make the cut. But Mills really well against England and his profile got noticed by the IPL bosses. So he was snapped up for $150,000 dollars and that is not motivating factor for this bowler. It is the fact that he may get a chance to play alongside the likes of Brett Lee. He is a thrilled man these days.

Queenslander Hopes an all rounder topped the bids at the second auction. Hopes, 29, was snapped for $324,000 to join the IPL Mohali team. He is very happy to have joined the IPL and calls it once in a life time experience.

All of them have the same things to say. It is the chance to play for and against some of the best talent available in the world that inspires and motivates them.

Almost 14 of the world cup winning Indian under-19 team have been snapped up by the various teams. The was a cap of $30,000 dollars for each player as the BCCI did not want to corrupt the youngsters. Most are just thrilled to bits that they will get a chance to play with their idols and the stars.

It is nice to see these lot of players who are more excited at the prospect of just cricket and not the money

What do you think about the new logo. See the logo here

Kolkata Knight Rides bought Pakistan’s Salman Butt and Mohd Hafeez. The two batsman are expected to shore up IPL Kolkata’s batting line-up.

Kolkata Knight Riders also bought under-19 world cup winning stars Iqbal Abdullah and S Kaul.

Shah Rukh’s team sure looks fine.

The theme song for the Knight Riders with “korbo-lorbo-jitbo” – WORK FIGHT WIN.

 The team colors will be black and gold. SRK said that ‘golden symbolizes spirit of life and black presents the Goddess Kali – the reigning diety of all Bengalis.

The team mission : Unleash our power and tear down the rivals

Vision: To win every war in the battlefield because losing is not an option

Motto: To Fight With Passion. To Fight For Glory

Belief: We are the Kings Men. We Rule

The Knight Riders Say We are coming to Conquer.

The Kolkata Knight Riders will be playing 14 matches and the their first match will be against the Bangalore Royal Challengers on Apr 18th. Here’s a complete list of matches featuring the team.

April 18: Bangalore v Kolkata Knight Riders at Bangalore.

April 19: Mohali v Chennai at Mohali and Delhi v Jaipur at Delhi.

April 20: Mumbai v Bangalore at Mumbai and Kolkata Knight Riders v Hyderabad at Kolkata.

April 21: Jaipur v Mohali at Jaipur.

April 22: Hyderabad v Delhi at Hyderabad.

April 23: Chennai v Mumbai at Chennai.

April 24: Hyderabad v Jaipur at Hyderabad.

April 25: Mohali v Mumbai at Mohali.

April 26: Bangalore v Jaipur at Bangalore; Chennai v Kolkata Knight Ridersat Chennai.

April 27: Mumbai v Hyderabad at Mumbai; Mohali v Delhi at Mohali.

April 28: Bangalore v Chennai at Bangalore.

April 29: Kolkata Knight Riders v Mumbai at Kolkata.

April 30: Delhi v Bangalore at Delhi.

May 1: Hyderabad v Mohali at Hyderabad; Jaipur v Kolkata Knight Ridersat Jaipur.

May 2: Chennai v Delhi at Chennai.

May 3: Hyderabad v Bangalore at Hyderabad; Mohali v Kolkata Knight Riders at Mohali.

May 4: Mumbai v Delhi at Mumbai; Jaipur v Chennai at Jaipur.

May 5: Bangalore v Mohali at Bangalore.

May 6: Chennai v Hyderabad at Chennai.

May 7: Mumbai v Jaipur at Mumbai.

May 8: Delhi v Chennai at Delhi; Kolkata Knight Riders v Bangalore at Kolkata.

May 9: Jaipur v Hyderabad at Jaipur.

May 10: Bangalore v Mumbai at Bangalore; Chennai v Mohali at Chennai.

May 11: Hyderabad v Kolkata Knight Ridersat Hyderabad; Jaipur v Delhi at Jaipur.

May 12: Mohali v Bangalore at Mohali.

May 13: Kolkata Knight Ridersv Delhi at Kolkata.

May 14: Mumbai v Chennai at Mumbai; Mohali v Jaipur at Mohali.

May 15: Delhi v Hyderabad at Delhi.

May 16: Mumbai v Kolkata Knight Riders at Mumbai.

May 17: Delhi v Mohali at Delhi; Jaipur v Bangalore at Jaipur.

May 18: Hyderabad v Mumbai at Hyderabad; Kolkata Knight Riders v Chenna at Kolkata.

May 19: Bangalore v Delhi at Bangalore.

May 20: Kolkata Knight Ridersv Jaipur at Kolkata.

May 21: Mumbai v Mohali at Mumbai; Chennai v Bangalore at Chennai.

May 22: Delhi v Kolkata Knight Ridersat Delhi.

May 23: Mohali v Hyderabad at Mohali.

May 24: Delhi v Mumbai at Delhi; Chennai v Jaipur at Chennai.

May 25: Bangalore v Hyderabad at Bangalore; Kolkata Knight Riders v Mohali at Kolkata.

May 26: Jaipur v Mumbai at Jaipur.

May 27: Hyderabad v Chennai at Hyderabad.

May 28 and 29: Rest days.

May 30: First semi-final at Mumbai.

May 31: Second semi-final at Mumbai.

June 1: Final at Mumbai.

Here is a list of players who will auctioned off today

Pakistan: Misbah-ul Haq, Salman Butt, Mohammad Yousuf, Yasir Hameed, Mohammad Haneef and Sohail Tanvir.

New Zealand: Kyle Mills, Jeetan Patel, James Franklin, Chris Martin, Ross Taylor, Peter Fulton and Jamie How.

Australians: Brad Hodge, Shane Watson, James Hopes, Phil Jacques, Brett Geeves, Luke Pomerbach

South African: Morne Morkel, Ashwell Prince 

Sri Lanka: Prasanna Jayawardena 

Bangladesh: Mohammad Ashraful, Mashrafe Mortaza, Abdur Razzak.

By playing in IPL David will be missing out on 5 matches thatreaNottinghamshire team will be playing during that time. But, both Hussey and the county have reached an amicable settlement that allows Hussey to take part in the IPL without any hassle.