Both the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Perth Scorchers from Australia have appeared in two previous Champions League T20 tournaments, but neither side has previously progressed beyond the group stages.
Now the respective winners of their domestic T20 competitions, Knight Riders winning the 2014 IPL, and the Scorchers the Australian Big Bash League, clash at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad on Wednesday, with a semi-final spot in the 2014 CLT20 beckoning.
For the Knight Riders who have already won both their fixtures, against mighty Chennai and the Lahore Lions, a third win will effectively seal their place in the last four. The Scorchers who are the only other unbeaten side in the group, having won their only match to date, know that a win would almost certainly leave them needing to win just one of their two remaining fixtures to go through.
Kolkata’s latest win against the Lahore Lions, who had to come through the qualifying tournament to even gain a place in the main draw, followed what has become a routine pattern in their game, and which has seen them now post an 11-game winning streak. An astonishing run in T20 cricket, given how a game can so easily be turned by the performance of a single individual.
They prefer to bowl first and allow Sunil Narine and their other spinners to smother the opposition, and then set Robin Uthappa and the rest of the top order free to chase down what is inevitably a sub par score.
The contest between mystery spinner Narine and the Scorchers big hitting Mitchell Marsh may be one of the highlights of the tournament as a whole. The winner of that particular battle may hold the key to the outcome of the match itself, and therefore the future participation of their team in the tournament.