(From top) Ananya Bera and Sunanda Hiroo, the chosen cheerleaders for Kolkata Knight Riders

Two more Calcuttans are joining the Kolkata Knight Riders in South Africa. No, it’s not a new brainwave from coach John Buchanan. They are Shah Rukh Khan’s Angels — two of the six girls picked as the official cheerleaders for King Khan’s IPL team.

Ananya Bera of Lake Town and Sunanda Hiroo of Park Street are the two city girls who will be crowned Angels by SRK this Saturday on NDTV Imagine’s Knights & Angels. The final episode was shot in Mumbai’s Yash Raj Studio recently with the other judges — Sourav Ganguly, Juhi Chawla and Shiamak Davar — in attendance.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” 16-year-old Ananya, a Class XII student at St Francis Xavier’s School, told Metro. “Since I am from Calcutta, it (the opportunity to be a KKR cheerleader) is more special to me than it is for the girls from Mumbai or Nagpur. I will be cheering my city, my team, the Kolkata Knight Riders. That apart, Shah Rukh is associated with the team and I just love him,” the teenager trilled.

SRK is also the reason why 22-year-old Sunanda participated in the Knights & Angels auditions. “My mom is a total fan of Shah Rukh Khan, so she has been very supportive,” said the former Jet Airways employee, on cloud nine after making the cut.

“It’s a very, very big thing that Mr Khan is the owner of the team. He has been very supportive and has given all of us a pep talk. And although he is King (Khan) and everyone is in awe of him, he is very down to earth. He has told us that we are a part of his extended family now.”

The two new KKR members expect to join the rest of the family in the second week of April in South Africa. “If the IPL had happened in Calcutta, my family and friend could have gone and seen me cheering the team,” says Ananya. “But it’s nice that IPL is at least happening. My family is a bit nervous that I am going so far on my own but they are also happy that I am going overseas for such an exciting assignment.”

And for those who think cheerleading is an easy job and just about anybody can do it, hear it from Sunanda. “Not everyone can be a cheerleader — she has to dance well, she has to be approachable, she has to have loads of energy and she has to have a presence,” she says in one go. “The morale of the team can go down any time… it happens in all sports. So we have to be ready to cheer them up, so that they can rise from their fall that very second.”

To find out how Ananya and Sunanda manage to cheer up Sourav, wait till April 19, when KKR takes on Deccan Chargers in Cape Town.