Ponting & Co feel the heat

The Kolkata Knight Riders underwent their first training session in sweltering conditions at the Eden Gardens on Saturday. Ricky Ponting & Co went through the session, even as the mercury shot past the 37-degree mark this afternoon. “It felt like 49.5 degrees,” a tongue-in-cheek Aussie skipper Ponting said when asked about the 90-minute practice session.

Many big names were missing from the line-up, but giving the Aussie skipper company was his former coach John Buchanan, and a bunch of players from the senior Bengal team. The players of the Kolkata team will go through a five-day camp before the IPL gets underway on April 18.

“It felt really warm out there today, which is why we had to keep the practice seesion light. Add to that the jet lag factor, and the fact that many of us were getting dehydrated. It was a little tough, and we were sweating hard. In such conditions, we mustn’t try too hard,” the Australian skipper joked.