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KKR all set for title defence (IPL team profile)
Kolkata: KKR at present are the title defenders of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and this time round also after the auction they have one of the most balanced squads for the tournament.
The defending champions may not look the best side on paper but they sure carry the potential to defend and again hold aloft the coveted trophy.
The Gautam Gambhir-led side has a quality mix of youth and experience and have come through tough situations holding their nerves. The vociferous skipper will leave no stone unturned to seek what they achieved in the last edition.
The skipper has new armoury to bank on, but he would still want his old guns to fire.
Though the Knights have not made many changes to their squad, they have brought in former Pakistan cricketer Azhar Mahmood and South African off-spinner Johan Botha as replacements for New Zealand all-rounder Jimmy Neesham and Australian middle-order bat Chris Lynn.
KKR’s most extravagant buy this season is Bengaluru off-spinner K.C. Cariyappa, who stuck a jackpot commanding a price of Rs 2.4 crore at the auction. Termed as a “mystery spinner” the 17-year-old has not even featured in a first-class game.
The team’s spin spearhead West Indies spinner Sunil Narine, though cleared by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for his suspect bowling action, has been barred by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
He has to go through bio-mechanical tests in Chennai before he is allowed to play in the tournament. The management has threatened to pull-out if the champion right-arm spinner is not allowed to take part.
This time too, all eyes will be on top-order batsman Robin Uthappa, who was a revelation for his side last year amassing 660 runs from 16 matches at an astonishing average of 44.00, took home the Orange Cap for being the highest run-getter in the tournament.
Giving the spinning department might will be veteran Australian chinaman Brad Hogg who picked 10 wickets from nine matches in 2012, when he turned up for the Rajasthan Royals.
Sheldon Jackson, the Saurashtra batsman, also has been roped as the second choice wicket-keeper.
Leading the pace attack will be South African spearhead Morne Morkel, Australia’s Pat Cummins, and India’s most successful bowler in the World Cup Umesh Yadav.
As defending champions the men in purple will go out all guns blazing to defend their title, it is the general-in-chief Gambhir who has to mix the aggression with required calmness and see to it that his team does not falter.
The KKR squad:
(Indians)
Gautam Gambhir (captain), Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa (wicketkeeper), Piyush Chawla, Yusuf Pathan, Umesh Yadav, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav Veer, Pratap Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Sumit Narwal, Sheldon Jackson, Aditya Garhwal, KC Cariappa, Vaibhav Rawal, Manish Pandey.
(Foreigners)
Shakib Al Hasan, Morne Morkel, Pat Cummins, Ryan ten Doeschate, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Azhar Mahmood, Johan Botha.
Team Schedule – Home: vs Mumbai Indians (April 8), Royal Challengers Bangalore (April 11), Rajasthan Royals (April 26), Chennai Super Kings (April 30), Sunrisers Hyderabad (May 4), Delhi Daredevils (May 7), Kings XI Punjab (May 9)
Away: Kings XI Punjab (April 18), Delhi Daredevils (April 20), Sunrisers Hyderabad (April 22), Chennai Super Kings (April 28), Royal Challengers Bangalore (May 2), Mumbai Indians (May 14), Rajasthan Royals (May 16)
IPL record: 2008-6th, 2009-8th, 2010-6th, 2011-4th, 2012-1st, 2013-7th, 2014-1st
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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