The Knight Riders were led by the best captain India has ever seen and was graced by players like Ricky Ponting, Ishant Sharma, and Shoaib Akhtar.

But the biggest impact was made by New Zealand wicketkeeper batsman Brendon McCullum, who blasted a hundred in the opening game against Banaglore Royal Challengers before the bowlers came back to fold up the Bangalore innings for less than 100.

However, the joy was short lived as the Knight Riders failed to find any momentum as the tournament progressed.

Umar Gul's precise yorkers, Ishant's accuracy and Murali Kartik's control were the buzzwords before the tourney began but, apart from Gul, few impressed.

Ponting did not justify his brief stay, scoring two successive ducks and looked completely out of sorts.

Shoaib battled his injuries before finally getting a chance to play. He did impress the massive home crowd with his sheer pace in a game against the Delhi Daredevils but did not give out much hope.

Sri Lankan mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis joined the Knight Riders and gave his first glimpse to sub-continent audiences.

Ganguly did not get too many runs and struggled with the stars not performing to potential with David Hussey being the only exception, who waged many a lone battles.

The John Buchanan-Ganguly combination was expected to work out some more magic but the team seemed to have signed up too many players who had to leave for national assignments after the first leg.

However, Buchanan came up with a controversy stirring multi-captain theory, which saw comments flying in from many quarters.

Eventually, a day before the IPL kicked off, McCullum was appointed skipper after Ganguly was sacked.

Knight Riders were not helped by the fact that Pakistani opener Salman Butt could not continue his love affair with the Eden Gardens.

Ishant, coming off a brilliant tour Down Under, failed miserably and was a huge disappointment, considering the fact that he was the second most expensive Indian player after MS Dhoni.

Coach: John Buchanan

Captain:B.McCullum

Colours: Black & Gold

Home Ground: Eden Gardens

Capacity: 90,000

Owner: Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla & Jai Mehta

Official Website: http://www.kolkataknightriders.com/