Kolkata Knight Riders pace spearhead Ishant Sharma has supported his coach John Buchanan’s multi-captaincy idea.
Ishant said the innovative theory could actually help his Indian Premier League side do well in the second season.
Sourav Ganguly was not amused with the idea but Ishant said there was no harm in having four captains as their different ideas could help the team overcome last year’s failure.
“Sourav Ganguly is a good captain but sometimes you need new ideas which Buchannan theory can generate,” he told News24 Channel.
“Buchannan is a very good coach and bit of support from other players can turn the things around for KKR,” he said.
The lanky fast bowler said his IPL side will miss the services of experience Australia captain Ricky Ponting and Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar.
Source – espnstar.com
Owner – Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla & Jai Mehta CEO – Joy Bhattacharya Captain – Sourav Ganguly (India) Coach – John Buchanan (Australia) Assistant Coach – Matthew Mott (Australia) Physical Trainer – Michael Buchanan (Australia) Physical Trainer – Adrian Le Roux Physiotherapist – Andrew Leipus (Australia)
Shah Rukh Khan, owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders, has hit back at Sunil Gavaskar over his comments about franchise coach John Buchanan, and asked Gavaskar to stay away from issues concerning his IPL team.
In his column for the Hindustan Times, Gavaskar termed Buchanan a “failed former cricketer making a living telling international players to do what he couldn’t do”. It has not gone down well with the IPL franchise, which last week tried to put a lid on the controversy generated by Buchanan’s theory of multiple captains by releasing a statement that during a game the team would resort to a group of “strategists” who would report to one on-field captain while making decisions.
Khan has come to Buchanan’s defence, saying there was a marked difference in the time Gavaskar played and now. “I respect Mr Gavaskar – his knowledge about cricket is a billion times better than me,” Khan told reporters in Mumbai. “But this is an era where Mr Gavaskar has not indulged in; nevertheless his knowledge about the game does allow him to make comments.
“This is a new format that’s being tried out. Please give it some breathing space. I am the owner of the team, I bought it. If he wants to implement something, let him buy a team.”
Gavaskar was scathing of Buchanan in his column, saying the former Australian coach had a way with words in India, a country Gavaskar said had few people capable of defusing opinion makers. “To comment on his multiple skipper theory is to give it the importance it doesn’t deserve but what does require comment is how he has got his Queensland pals lucrative jobs with KKR,” wrote Gavaskar. “They have a very big support staff which includes his son and most of them are from Queensland. The owners – poor souls – have little idea that they are being milked.”
Gavaskar also said the Indian media granted unwarranted importance to Buchanan. “In India, where the media lives by the sound bite, Buchanan is a regular,” he wrote. “If the Indian media had not made him out to be a ‘super coach’, he would have been just another failed former cricketer making a living telling international players to do what he couldn’t at the first-class level.”
Buchanan’s radical theory had stirred a controversy on the eve of the team’s departure to South Africa, forcing a nearly four-hour long meeting between Buchanan, Sourav Ganguly, Khan and Jai Mehta, who owns a stake in the team, in Mumbai. A subsequent statement released by Kolkata stressed that there would be only one captain, who would be fed with suggestions from this core group of strategists.
Source – content.cricinfo.com
Kolkata Knight Riders owner Shah Rukh Khan on Sunday told CNN-IBN that the captaincy issue will only be settled on April 16, two days before the commencement of the IPL. Earlier, when head coach John Buchanan suggested his much talked about multi-captain theory, he diffused the rising criticism by saying Sourav Ganguly would remain the captain.
Shah Rukh Khan: There are two aspects. One, that everybody has a right and their own point of view. This is cricket. Here, cricketing greats are speaking. With full respect to Mr Sunil Gavaskar who won’t find a bigger fan than me, and I’m still his fan and always will be, I take what he said very seriously and pay heed to it.
Twenty20 is a new format. I think it should be given breathing space to have new trials out. If they work out, good. If they don’t, we’ll reject it ourselves. We’re also not stupid. John (Buchanan) is a very smart man. He is a very intelligent man and dedicated to the cause of Kolkata Knight Riders.
At the end of it all, till it is done, unless it’s on the ground, making any comment about this too early. So let’s see. Maybe Mr Gavaskar is right. Maybe John is right.
Source – cricketnext.in.com
The ‘differences’ with Kolkata Knight Riders coach John Buchanan notwithstanding, Sourav Ganguly said on Thursday that he would like to forget the past and look forward to a good show in the second season of the Indian Premier League starting in South Africa from April 18.
“It’s (the differences over captaincy issue) not a new thing in sports and I am sure it will happen in future also. It happens in a lot of teams. I think as professionals, we need to put this behind and look forward to playing in South Africa. I don’t think it will affect (the team preparation),” the former India captain said on the sidelines of a promotional event in Kolkata.
Ganguly, who led the Knight Riders last year, was miffed after Buchanan announced that the Kolkata outfit would have multiple captains in the IPL this season.
The Bengal stalwart, however, said as professionals he and his team-mates are determined to fulfil their responsibilities towards the team.
“We all are professionals and when the tournament starts we all have responsibilities. We all have reputations to keep. We know we are doing a job for Knight Riders for which everyone is looked after,” Ganguly said.
Meanwhile, in an apparent move to douse the tension within the outfit over the captaincy issue, the Knight Riders have decided to announce their skipper and squad for the cash-rich T20 tournament in South Africa.
Although, the Knight Riders management decided to dump Buchanan’s idea and stick to the “one” captain policy in a meeting at team owner Shah Rukh Khan’s residence on Tuesday, they are still tight-lipped on whether Ganguly would continue as the skipper or not.
Asked about the disappearance of Kolkata’s name from the team logo, Ganguly said, “It’s still Kolkata Knight Riders. Knight Riders is the company, it was there last year and it just disappeared perhaps because the tournament shifted to South Africa. But it will remain Kolkata Knight Riders when we return next year.”
Ganguly, who leaves for South Africa on April 5, said their base camp, Bloemfontein will help in the team’s preparation as it has the best wicket in South Africa.
“Bloemfontein is a very good place. They say Bloemfontein has the best wicket in South Africa. Everybody had their chance to select for their base camp and the reason why we chose Bloemfontein because it’s the more quieter part of South Africa.”
He further said the team’s fitness trainer Adrian Le Roux belonged to that part of the country which was one of the reason behind the decision to select Bloemfontein as the base.
“Le Roux belongs to that place so obviously he had a major say in the decision. He knows the ground condition well and will be able to help us in terms of facilities, wickets and make sure we get everything in place before the camp starts,” added Ganguly.
Source – expressindia.com
