Shah Rukh Khan’s IPL team’s experiment will be watched keenly. Kolkata Knight Riders’ coach John Buchanan and its icon player Sourav Ganguly sprang a surprise on the cricket world by announcing that the team will have a pool of captains who could turns at leading the team at different stages of a match during the ensuing DLF-IPL tournament in South Africa.

“We’re looking at knowledge of individuals at different stages of the game. The idea is to have somebody to have a better view of the game irrespective of whether he’s in the middle or off the field,” Buchanan said in Kolkata, sparking off a great debate in cricket circles. He suggested that in this format of the game there is little scope for thinking.

Last year, the DLF-IPL tournament showed that T20 was not just slam-bang cricket. On the contrary, it challenged the best cricketers to be on their toes and think on their feet. Buchanan has surely added a new dimension to it now but, as Ganguly says, we will all have to wait and see how the experiment pans out.

Traditionally, it has been believed that too many captains on the field can lead to chaos. At the moment, we can only envisage that the adaptability of KKR players – and, for good measure, the pool of captains – will come under test.

Come to think of it, the opposing teams will also wonder during a game which of the KKR men on the field is doing the leading. After all, every captain has a different approach to the task of leadership and the rival teams would have to make different plans to take on the KKR combination under different skippers.

Buchanan has not articulated his thoughts on how exactly he plans to roll this idea out. “The concept of multiple captains is new, we’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. “I’m clear about my concept. We have to look and see how it works out.”

You can be sure there will be a lot of people waiting to see how it goes.
Source – khabrein.info

Yesterday’s announcement by John Buchanan on the usage of multiple captains by Kolkata Knight Riders this season is a massive gamble that threatens to derail their campaign. Aside from the uncertainty and changes in strategy from match to match due to a revolving door, the policy threatens to unleash infighting not seen in Indian cricket since the Chappell-Ganguly debacle three years ago.

As Sourav Ganguly sat next too Buchanan at the press conference, he seemed distinctly uneasy, and when asked whether he was upset by the new policy, he skirted around the question before Buchanan interjected, quipping “Of course he will be upset. He is the Prince of Kolkata.”

Ganguly then broke into laughter, but the body language looked distinctly worrying. With two strongly minded individuals in the franchise, it could herald rather stormy times for the Bengal-base outfit.

Buchanan has never been a coach in the serene and low-key mould of a Gary Kirsten or John Wright. On the contrary, he is full of ideas and innovation, whatever one might think of them. And on that front, trouble lurks. Like Greg Chappell, Buchanan can be frank, even to the point of being publically undiplomatic, and is unlikely to defer on an issue in order to placate superstar players.

After the famed Kolkata Test of 2001, when VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid batted for an entire day to pull India out of certain defeat, Buchanan publicly questioned Shane Warne’s fitness and said that his weight was a factor as Australia’s attack wilted in the same heat. Nor was he perturbed by Warne’s anger and defiance when called into question. Last year, having retired from international cricket, Warne lampooned Buchanan and his methods, claiming that he was living in “La-La Land”. In a radio interview soon after, Buchanan laughed and joked about the incident. Buchanan was never put off by Warne’s vehement opposition, and it’s unlikely that he’ll bend to Ganguly either, at least without a monumental fight.

Like Chappell and the vast majority of Australians, Buchanan places quite a lot of emphasis on fielding, something which Ganguly famously disregarded. Sooner or later, especially in the most frenetic of formats, this will become a source of added tension, as it did when Chappell brought a flock of youngsters into the ODI team in late-2005.

And on that occasion, one of the most chaotic periods in recent cricket history broke out. Already sensing his demise, the nervous Ganguly played politics within the team, shuffling the batting order around and instilling uncertainty into his teammates. Before the dispute with Chappell was brought into the public, Laxman scored a century against Zimbabwe and muttered about negative vibes from within the team. Given what transpired, it’s easy to see who he was referring to. With Ganguly looking over his shoulder again, something that is accentuated by his retirement from first-class cricket and the entailing uncertainty over his form, he could easily revert to his old behaviour and destabilise a team that is already looking weak in the absence of Umar Gul.

It’s something that the Knight Riders could well do without. Perhaps it is the prelude to Ganguly’s departure. Whatever the outcome, the issue needs to be resolved quickly and decisively.

Source – blogs.livemint.com

Shah Rukh Khan owned Kolkata Knight Riders yesterday introduced captaincy rotation in the IPL team. This year’s Indian Premier League will not be played in India but in South Africa due to security reasons. Captaincy rotation is another new thing that has happened to cricket.

KKR’s Director of Operations John Buchanan and its icon player Sourav Ganguly announced on Tuesday that the team would not have a “fixed captain” for the second edition of the event, due to be played in South Africa next month.

They said the captain fo each game would be picked from among a pool of four leaders including New Zealand wicket-keeeper batsman Brendon McCullum, West Indies skipper Chris Gayle and Sourav Ganguly. The think tank has not named the fourth player in the pool yet..

The interesting concept mirrors the concept of captaincy-rotation seen in soccer. Buchanan is known for his out-of -the-box thinking and has given the cricketing world another new concept to think about.

When Buchanan started the press briefing by saying he was keen to change the approach to captaincy and leadership in cricket, few had any clue about what was to follow. With four captains at the helm of affairs, he will have different views to draw from and different strategies will be adopted by the team when it encounters a difficult situation.
Source – khabrein.info

Sourav Ganguly will no longer be the “fixed” skipper of the Kolkata Knight Riders as the team has decided to rotate captaincy in the second season of the Indian Premier League starting April 18 in South Africa.

KKR coach John Buchanan said the decision to have multiple captains has nothing to do with Ganguly’s performance or fitness and denied any rift in the team.

“The decision has got nothing to do with Sourav’s performance. Chris Gayle (West Indies), Brendon McCullum (New Zealand) and Ganguly will all captain KKR. There will be a nominated captain for each game,” he said.

Ganguly, on his part, said his focus was to perform on the field.

“He is the coach, he has views. My goal is to score runs and take wickets,” responded the former Indian captain when asked whether he was disappointed with the KKR’s move.

Even before Ganguly could finish his response, Buchanan intervened to say “He is the King of Kolkata.”

“If you (the media) is going to make a big deal about it, go ahead, we are not going to do it. The concept of multiple captains is new and we will have to see how it goes,” he said. Asked how the team would cope with the conditions in South Africa, where the IPL was shifted after failing to get security assurance from the Indian government, Ganguly said, “It will be different to play there. Wickets will have bounce but let’s see.”
Source – indianexpress.com

There is a calm before a storm. After keeping a low profile for sometime, Shahrukh Khan is all set to storm your television screens. Nothing can stop him from cheering for his IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders and not even the recent surgery on his shoulder.

The second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be played outside India because of the upcoming general elections. Shahrukh knows the buzz will be missing in India but he is certainly not going to miss the fun. He said that he and his Bollywood friends would try to watch maximum number of matches. He added that he would request Lalit Modi, Chairman of the IPL, to reschedule the matches on weekends so that his children could watch it.

Well, Shahrukh Khan roped in Indian celebrities like Karan Johar, Arjun Rampal, Farah Khan, Aziz Mirza, Juhi Chawla, Vivek Oberoi, Sajid Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Chunky Pandey and Arbaaz Khan to cheer for his team Kolkata Knight Riders last year. The story will be different this time around, as the venue for the IPL matches will be away from home. England and South Africa are the favourites to host this year’s IPL.

Well, let’s wait and watch if Shahrukh can pull the crowd outside India.
Source – entertainment.oneindia.in