Calcutta: Ricky Ponting, Chris Gayle and Shoaib Akhtar’s inclusion in the Calcutta side for the Indian Premier League will make things exciting. Former state and national cricketers are excited with the team’s prospects.

The Telegraph on Thursday spoke to some of them and the following are their reactions:

Deep Dasgupta: I think as of now this Calcutta team lacks a batsman. Though batsmen like Dada, Ponting, Gayle and Brendon McCullum are in the line up, still I feel there should have been another batsman. But if the Australia-Pakistan series is on, then Ponting will be unavailable. Then they will have two recognised batsmen — Sourav Ganguly and Chris Gayle — and in Twenty20 format you cannot rely on the performance of just two batsmen. The team desperately needs some good hitters. Inclusion of Laxmi Ratan Shukla will definitely be a boost for the middle order.

Devang Gandhi: It’s a good team. With explosive opener like Chris Gayle, experienced campaigners like Sourav, Ricky Ponting, Shoaib Akhtar, I feel it will be a well-balanced side. The team has lot of variety. The inclusion of David Hussey, I think is quite surprising. He (Hussey) is an unknown commodity in international cricket and can play a crucial role at any point of time. The bowling-line up with Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Ajit Agarkar seems quite good. And if Shoaib is in full form he could be deadly for the opponents.

Utpal Chatterjee: I don’t know how good this team will be. I don’t see any point in including Shoaib Akhtar when he is totally out of form.