Wednesday’s first match of the day is between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Royal Challengers Bangalore and it is a fight for the wooden spoon thus far in the competition. Kolkata have won one match and another has been abandoned due to rain giving them three points while the team from Bangalore has only two points in five matches.
Rahul Dravid is one batsman I would have vouched for, despite the problems that he has with his strike rates in this format. However, with Dravid back in India for the delivery of his baby, the selection of players from Bangalore has become a conundrum for the Sports Pundit IPL Fantasy users.
In fact, the biggest issue is which four of the foreign players will end up playing for Bangalore. Kevin Pietersen is a must given that he is the captain, Ross Taylor is slowly regaining his touch, Mark Boucher played his first match of the tournament last time around and shone with the bat, Jesse Ryder had a good inning of thirty-odd and looks good for more, where as Dale Steyn is a bowler par excellence. Add a Jacques Kallis to this, who is an all-rounder, but currently more of a batsman than a bowler, and it gets more puzzling.
To me, it will be a mistake to go without Steyn and rely heavily on the likes of Vinay Kumar and Pankaj Singh as new ball bowlers. This means, that apart from Steyn and Pietersen, there are two spots left to be taken. My picks will be Jesse Ryder and Mark Boucher; the former on the basis of the fact that power-hitters like him are needed in this format, while the latter is required to grit it out as both, a batsman and a wicket-keeper. 
K.P.Appanna was very impressive with slow left-arm bowling and could be a bowler to look to, and probably even choose in your starting eleven.
Kolkata is a similar story. Potentially very strong hitters, but no results to show. Chris Gayle looks set to repeat the dose that he dished out to the Kings XI Punjab, and Ganguly seems to be coming alond very nicely with both bat and ball. However, the biggest worry currently for the team will be the form of captain Brendon McCullum who hasn’t had a great IPL so far.
From the bowlers point of view, Ajantha Mendis has now been sorted out twice, the last of which was mesmerising batting by Sachin Tendulkar. Still, I will not put it beyond him to make a comeback and capture bucketful of wickets. For more on Kolkata and their team selections for SPIFfers, kindly read the preview of the Kolkatan team here