Former India captain Sourav Ganguly had a successful international career in both Tests and ODIs. The former left-handed batsman retired from cricket as one of the most successful captains of Indian team. In 2008, Ganguly was roped in by Kolkata Knight Riders as captain of the team before the start of the inaugural season of Indian Premier league. But unfortunately for Ganguly fans, things did not turn out good for the team.
Under Ganguly’s captaincy, KKR finished at the 6th position in the first season of the IPL, which led to coach John Buchanan trying a split captaincy format with Ganguly and Brendon McCullum sharing the role in the 2009 season. The decision did not go down well with Ganguly who continued to struggled with the bat and KKR finished with a wooden spoon in the 2nd season.
Speaking in a recent interview, Buchanan, who was sacked before the 2010 season as KKR coach, said that he believed that Ganguly was not suited to T20 format.
“My thinking at the time was, as a captain, you needed to be able to make quick decisions and your game needed to be suited to the shorter format, and that’s why I had those conversations with Sourav,” Buchanan told Sportstar.
“I just couldn’t believe he was suited to the format of the game and certainly not in a formal captaincy role,” the former Australia coach added.
Speaking on the idea of split captaincy in IPL, Buchanan said that he still feels it is a good idea to do so for the teams, especially in longer tournaments.
“I think it’s too much for one person to actually understand all the set of plays that you need to put in place, all the various decisions you need to make, reasonably quickly. And really where it was going to was to have everybody as a leader.
“In other words, you are saying split captaincy, but you want everybody to be a leader on the field. These days all the bowlers are in charge of every delivery that they make. All batters make decisions out there without necessarily the inputs of the captain and the coaches. I think that is where the strength of the team lies,” he added.
The 13th edition of IPL will kick off from September 19th with the final to be played from November 10th.
