It’s been an exciting week. We finally announced our 15 for the Champions League. We are at full strength, with captain Gautam Gambhir being supported by Jacques Kallis, Manvinder Bisla, Manoj Tiwary, Brad Haddin, Eoin Morgan, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan, Ryan TenDoeschate, Rajat Bhatia, Iqbal Abdullah, Brett Lee, Laxmipathy Balaji , Jaydev Unadkat and Sami Ahmed.

A special mention for Brett, Brad and Jacques. All three had the option of playing for another team and avoiding the qualifiers – Brett and Brad for NSW and Jacques for the Western Warriors. They chose to stay and fight through with us. That’s the spirit we would like to take forward to our matches.

As the English T20 championship just ended, we finally know both our qualifying opponents. On the 19th, we face Auckland, the New Zealand champs. They are a good outfit, with experienced campaigners like Lou Vincent, Daryl Tuffey, Kyle Mills and Andre Adams backed up by young guns like Martin Guptil and Gareth Hopkins

Our opponents for the match on the 21st are Somerset, the runners up of the English T20 championship. They have been consistent limited over performers and have batsmen of the caliber of Marcus Trescothick, Craig Kieswetter and Jos Butlter, all rounder Kieron Pollard and bowlers like Alphonso Thomas, and old KKR hand, Murali Kartik. However, Kieron has decided to play for the Mumbai Indians after qualifying from four different teams, and Kieswetter and Buttler are likely to be on England duty at the time – which should provide some relief to our bowlers.

For those of you worried about Gautam’s injury, we have been assured that he should be fine by the 19th. We will keep you updated on that on a regular basis.