The opening encounter of the Pepsi IPL 2015 will for the second season running see Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians kick off the tourney. The stage for last year’s encounter was Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium where MI fell 41 runs short of KKR’s 163 for 5.
MI should be aware how important opening encounters are. Following the bashing at the hands of KKR, they went on to lose four more matches in a row and though they came back brilliantly by winning seven of their last nine matches to make it to the play-offs, a bad start meant they were never considered a threatening opposition.KKR also had their share of ups and downs but peaked at the right time and lifted the trophy for the second time last season.
As for the match tomorrow, AnimationXpress brings forth the clash of two mega heroes from KKR and MI namely Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma, but with an animated twist.
Leading the winning pack, KKR captain Gautam Gambhir is Mr. Dependable The Dark Knight. With indeed tougher-bets playing out there, Gambhir with his sheer technique and skills plays the role of the caped crusader rather too convincingly. Just like Batman, Gambhir’s meticulous nature and skill-set make him the lethal superhero for the Kolkata fans. Taking cue from the caped crusader, Gambhir lays down a similar winning strategy while displaying some real good cricket on the field.
Shazam! And thunder strikes upon evil as Captain Marvel (as he was earlier known) swoops across the sky in his scarlet suit brining on with himself the magic of sorcery. Getting the same magic onto the cricket-field, Rohit Sharma is Mumbai Indians’ Captain Marvel and will surely bring his thunder in a cracking way! The Indian opening batsman is the first man to score two ODI double hundreds and also owns the record for the highest total in a 50-over international cricket encounter.
Keep watching this space to see which other lucky cricketers get to feature as an animated version of themselves in the coming days…
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (c), Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Ryan ten Doeschate, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Andre Russell, Kuldeep Yadav, Morne Morkel, Patrick Cummins, Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine, Johan Botha, Azhar Mahmood, Umesh Yadav, Veer Pratap Singh, James Neesham, Brad Hogg, Aditya Garhwal, Sumit Narwal, KC Cariappa, Vaibhav Rawal and Sheldon Jackson.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Aaron Finch, Ambati Rayudu, Abhimanyu Mithun, Aditya Tare, Parthiv Patel, Keiron Pollard, Corey Anderson, Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Josh Hazlewood, Marchant de Lange, Pawan Suyal, Shreyas Gopal, Lendl Simmons, Pragyan Ojha, Mitchell McClenaghan, Aiden Blizzard, Akshay Wakhare, Nitish Rana, Sidhesh Lad, Hardik Pandya, Jagadeesha Suchitch, Unmukt Chand and R Vinay Kumar.
