The cash-rich Indian Premier League started in 2008 with marquee players leading the eight franchise. Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was appointed the captain of his hometown franchise Kolkata Knight Riders. Ganguly's journey in KKR didn't as plan as the southpaw's captaincy abilities was in question for the first time in his career after his franchise end the inaugural season at the sixth spot. The Things got worse in the second season as then KKR coach John Buchanan decided to adopt the multiple captains with Ganguly, West Indian Chris Gayle, New Zealand's explosive opener Brendon McCullum and Australian Brad Hodge. KKR ended on the bottom of the table in the 2009 edition which was held in South Africa.
The story remained same as KKR failed to qualify for the Playoffs in the 2010 season too after finishing sixth on the points table. The KKR management took a tough decision to not retain Ganguly for the following season. The decision was widely criticized by KKR fans who associate to the franchise with the local boy.
KKR CEO Venky Mysore look back on the time when the franchise had to take the call. Mysore said it was not a tougher decision from him but for the owners as he joined the franchise in 2010 and was unattached at that time.
“I’ll break that down into two parts. Personally, for me, it didn’t see like a big decision (not retaining Sourav Ganguly), only because I was unattached. If I had been part of the organisation for three years, or two years or one year, it would have been a tougher decision,” Mysore said in the latest episode of ‘The RK show’ uploaded on Youtube.
“This was like someone completely coming in from the outside, which I was, literally from the outside. Eventually, I realised, that for the organisation and for the owners, it was tough. It’s a decision and an approach that I proposed as I was given the mandate,” he said.
“I am not a complete lone-ranger maverick who runs off and wants to do my own thing. But at the same time, my entire career, I was used to being given the autonomy to operate, to also be accountable at the same time. I used to report to boards,” Mysore said.
“But it could easily have been a micro-managing kind of situation, or second-guessing the decisions I have made, or saying that ‘yeah, but we made those announcements, but let’s not do that’. But they stood completely behind me. That is why they took a lot of flak for that and heat. As an organisation, it was tougher for them. But to be perfectly honest, it was not that tougher for me to make that decision,” Mysore further added.
KKR bought Gautam Gambhir in the 2011 auction and named him the captain, which changes fortune for them as the veteran Indian opener led the franchise to two IPL title reigns.
