Sachin Tendulkar

East London: Wary of the T20 game producing “funny results,” Sachin Tendulkar isn’t taking comfort from the 92-run thrashing his team, the Mumbai Indians, gave the Kolkata Knight Riders in their first face-off in IPL 2009.

That was in Port Elizabeth on Monday. The return match is here on Friday.

“Look, any team can start winning at any stage in the tournament and, so, we’ll do what we should be doing instead of looking at the Knight Riders’ position (at the bottom) in the league table,” Sachin told The Telegraph.

Speaking at the Garden Court hotel on Thursday, soon after checking-in, he added: “Obviously, we don’t want the Knight Riders to start their winning run against us, but anything may happen in T20...

“We’ll prepare well and then take things as they come... I’m not despondent that we lost a close match (to the Kings XI Punjab) last night... We’d only been a shot or two away from winning...”

In Sachin’s opinion, the “very nature” of a T20 competition meant that the tournament would be “rather open.”

Looking to “prepare well,” except the key bowlers, the rest of the Mumbai Indians had a full-fledged session in the afternoon.

The Knight Riders had an optional nets session, which was attended even by (out of form) captain Brendon McCullum and predecessor Sourav Ganguly.

Chris Gayle and Ishant Sharma were the notable absentees.

In a one-on-one, McCullum said: “We’ve got no choice but to start winning... There’s no option and the boys are aware of that...”

Ajit Agarkar, one understands, could be dropped and the batting strengthened (on paper, at least) by bringing back Yashpal Singh.

East London, meanwhile, has brought back “very happy memories” where the Mumbai Indians’ coach, Praveen Amre, is concerned.

Amre had been the MoM in the ODI played here on the emotionally-driven and historic tour of South Africa in 1992-93.

“I wasn’t supposed to be in the XI, but got to play after Ravi Shastri dropped out at the last minute... It’s nice to return in a different role,” Amre, who’d scored 84 in India’s five-wicket win, recalled.

That had been the last match of the series, which was taken 5-2 by the hosts.

Match starts: 4 pm (IST).

Footnote: There were some very interested listeners, in the Knight Riders camp, when word spread about a report back in India that the franchise may be sold. Team director Joy Bhattacharjya had to clarify there was “no substance” in what had been written and that principal owner Shah Rukh Khan would issue a statement.