Kochi: Kochi Tuskers Kerala, who are making their debut in the Indian Premier League this season, Wednesday introduced their players and launched their promotional logo for the Twenty20 tournament starting on Friday.

The team is slated to meet Royal Challengers Bangalore in their opening match at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium here on April 9.

In a media conference, Kochi coach Geoff Lawson said the team’s captain Mahela Jayawardene, who made 103 in the World Cup final against India, was expected to join the team on the match day.

“We have four World Cup players — Mahela, Muttiah Muralidharan, Thisara Perera and Sreesanth. They have to be fresh and deserve a rest. Indian pacer Sreesanth, Murali and Thisara are expected to join the team Thursday,” Lawson said.

On Sreesanth, who had played only two matches in the World Cup, having played less matches in the IPL, the pacer will be fresh for the IPL.

“It is good for us that he had not played much cricket. The Kochi team is a new team. There are a lot of challenges. The management had an enormous task putting the team together. It was a difficult birth for this franchise,” he said.

“There are challenges. But we are confident of performing early on. We are looking to play well and win games. There will not be any excuses of not doing well as a team.”

The team had a practice session Wednesday and will be training Thursday also.

The Kochi team have been working hard under Lawson and their hard work will reap good results this season, Mukesh Patel, one of the directors, said.

Vivek Venugopal, one of the directors, said Kochi has lot of local talent and the IPL franchise gives them a forum to promote their talent in the International cricket arena.

The Kochi Tuskers have signed some notable players — Jayawardene, VVS Laxman, Brad Hodge, Owais Shah, Michael Klinger, Brendon McCullum, Muralidharan, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ramesh Powar, Vinay Kumar, Stephen ’Keefe, Ravindra Jadeja, Steve Smith, Perera, John Hastings and Parthiv Patel are the notable ones.