Fielding will be an important part: Daniel Flynn (Captain for Northern Knights)

Lead by Daniel Flynn (Captain), the Northern Knights from New Zealand are one of the four teams that are in the battle for a place in the CLT20 2014. Speaking about his team, the captain of NZ’s domestic T20 winners said, “I think we have a pretty well rounded team. We have two excellence swing bowlers who are ranked in the top ten Test ratings (Trent Boult and Tim Southee) and we are looking to make use of their experience. And we have a lot experience in our batting set with proven international players. So we are a well rounded team. And we are going to field well so that is going to be an important part of our game.”

Coach for Northern Knights - James Pamment said, “Weather will dictate the make-up of our squad. We do have good spinners to choose. It was interesting to see the game that was played here previously in Raipur there wasn’t too much involvement from the spinners. The game that the Delhi Daredevils won here (in the IPL), only one spinner bowled and that were Sunil Narine. We will review the conditions when we get to the stadium and have a good look at the wicket. Only if conditions do dictate that we need to play a spin bowler, we have got a number of quality spin bowlers within our group, Anton Devcich (left-arm spinner) and Ish Sodhi (leg-break) have both played international cricket. So we are confident and also we have two other young men who are very talented in spin bowling as well if we need to select them.”

“This is our inaugural visit to Raipur. We know that there has been a couple of IPL games played here before so we will see the footage from those games. It seems like a very nice stadium and we are really glad to be here,” said by James.

Asked about the absence of some key players in the Mumbai Indians and Lahore Lions teams and what it means to them, the Northern Knights coach stated, “We are playing against Southern Express first so we will focus on them. Once we play those guys, we will focus on the other squads.

The team had earlier had a formal welcome to their hotel with folk dance and the works. Speaking about the experience when asked, the coach said, “It was a wonderful welcome. We were really humbled to take in a traditional welcome like that. We thank the people of Raipur and the organizers putting up that sort of a welcome. Ever since we have been in India - we were in Bangalore last week - the hospitality has been striking. The boys are enchanted to be here and enjoying their time.”