Foreign players will boost KKR

With more foreign players available in second season, KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan feels his team will be more competitive this time.

The Kolkata franchisee made a blistering start last year but could not continue the momentum after some foreign players left for their national duty, which eventually led to their sixth place finish in the inaugural IPL.

This year also Australia skipper Ricky Ponting decided to skip the Twenty20 event and preferred to take rest in the wake of the forthcoming Ashes series but Shah Rukh feels the availability of other international players will boost Knight Riders' chances of a better finish.

"We have the whole team"

"Internationally, I think the players will be more available, so we have the whole team to begin with," Shah Rukh told a press conference after arriving here.

"We'll have Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum, and then David Hussey will join us when Gayle has to leave. Brad Hodge is here, and so is Sourav Ganguly. Everyone has been practising over the past 10 days.

"We are working on amazing plans, including the captaincy issue, which has been a controversy over the past month. I think overall we are very well prepared.

"Unfortunately, we do have injuries but we'll be there, one hundred per cent trying to do much better than last year," he said.

With many English players debuting in the Twenty20 extravaganza this time, one would expect the Kolkata franchisee to have some of them but Shah Rukh said they are too expensive and beyond KKR's reach.

"We have gold and black as a uniform, but the gold is not real," Shah Rukh quipped.

"We are a poor team and English players are very, very expensive. We would really like to have had them, but the auction rules and it's down to how much money you have."

The Bollywood superstar said they are planning to woo the youngsters as public image is very important for the team.

"I don't know about cricket but we are coolest-looking team," he said.