We are now favourites to win Champions League T20: Tiwary

Kolkata: Manoj Tiwary who hit the winning boundary in Sunday`s final feels that after winning their maiden IPL title in five seasons, Kolkata Knight Riders` next target is winning Champions League Twenty20 in October this year. League Twenty20 in October this year.

"Of course, we are favourites in the Champions League. Now that we have won the IPL, we will enter the competition as the favourites and everybody will expect us to win the title," Tiwary told mediapersons in Kolkata today. Tiwary said that the unity in the team was one of the key reason for success. "In the first two seasons, Dada (Sourav Ganguly) tried hard to lead from the front but somewhere down the line the chemistry was missing and things did not fall in place for us. I think we had few new recruits coming in last year. The likes of Kallis (Jacques), Yusuf (Pathan), who had played so well for their previous franchises and of course Sunil Narine this year." "All these coupled with the team chemistry this year was brilliant. We gelled really well as a unit and that for me personally was the key for our success," Tiwary said. Tiwary said that it also helped that Shakib Al Hasan was batting at the other end. Since both can speak in fluent Bengali, the communication was far better. "We (Manoj and Shakib) were talking in Bengali, true. Especially, Shakib was telling me to that "we can win this just have to stick to our job and play the shots. We decided not to panic and just focus on winning the match for KKR." PTI