Kolkata Knight Riders

Kolkata Knight Riders is one of the franchise of the eight team taking part in the Indian Premier League. It was bought by Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment in partnership with Juhi Chawla Mehta and her husband, Jai Mehta.

2008 IPL Season

Performance
The Knight Riders had a good beginning to the season by winning their first two matches against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers. Knight Riders' opening batsman Brendon McCullum scored 158 runs in the first match, which is a record for the highest runs ever scored by a batsman in a Twenty-20 match.However, the team started experiencing failures and lost consecutive four matches. The team managed to stage a comeback of sorts by winning next three matches based on strong performances by Sourav and Shoaib Akhtar. But their performance dipped again and lost next three matches, which included their match against Mumbai Indians, in which they were bowled out for 67 runs, the lowest score by a team in IPL.When their match against Delhi Daredevils was washed out due to rain, they lost any chance of making it to the semifinals. The Knight Riders ended their season on a winning note by defeating Kings XI Punjab on their home ground.

Controversy
There were reports of a rift between Shahrukh Khan and Sourav Ganguly over various issues such as team composition, Sourav's choice of batting first in the game against Chennai Super Kings, entertainment tax being imposed for matches played at Eden Gardens (Shahrukh reportedly wanted Sourav to speak to the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya about it, which was refused by Sourav).It was also reported that Shahrukh Khan bestowed more powers to John Buchanan including giving him full powers to select the team for the following year which was not liked by Sourav.However, the team management issued a statement that the reports of a possible rift are untrue.Shahrukh Khan was further barred by the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit from entering the dressing room of the team when matches were in progress. Shahrukh Khan then issued a statement that he would be boycotting the remaining matches of the IPL till the code of conduct was clarified by the IPL authorities.