Bangalore, May 7: Owned by the King of good times, the Bangalore Royal Challengers are not having the best of times.Following the team’s dismal performance in the Indian Premier League, CEO Charu Sharma’s head was the first to roll and he was replaced by Brijesh Patel, the KSCA secretary. It is learnt that Venkatesh Prasad was saved the axe as skipper Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble stepped in for the beleaguered coach and persuaded Mallya to retain him.

According to team sources, infuriated by the string of failures, Mallya, who had left the team selection to Dravid and Charu during the auction, decided that enough was enough. Mallya was also keen on seeing the exit of the Indian bowling coach, but relented after Dravid and Kumble vouched for Prasad’s usefulness.On Wednesday, things took an interesting turn as Charu claimed that he had not resigned and that he was dismissed. “I was summarily dismissed from my duties, three hours before I was to board a flight to Kolkata for the next match,” Charu said in a statement. “I am not a quitter, especially, when the chips are down,” he added.

Though it’s not exactly washing dirty linen in public the issue seems to be snowballing into a controversy.It’s said that there no enemies and friends in politics, and it proved true when Brijesh stepped into Charu’s shoes. Brijesh and Mallya were involved in a bitter battle during the KSCA elections last year. Mallya had backed Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, who had led the anti-Brijesh campaign during the elections.

It is true that Brijesh has a vast experience when it comes to management, but it remains to be seen how much he can impact the performance of the Challengers.Not only did the selection of players during the auction throw up a question mark, it also rankled that several local talents were ignored. The Challengers’ loss proved to be Mumbai’s gain as Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, and Gaurav Dhiman were roped in by the Mumbai Indians.

With Goa coming under the Challengers’ domain, they had the option of selecting opener Swapnil Asnodkar.Instead, they picked up former Karnataka skipper J. Arun Kumar, who is playing for Goa these days. Asnodkar would have also solved the opening conundrum for the Bangalore team and his ability can be gauged by his performances for the Rajasthan Royals.

With the odds stacked against them and stuck at the bottom of the points table, life can only get tougher for the Challengers.

Source:howrah.org