Sourav Ganguly has scored 9146 runs opening the innings in ODIs. So, why have the Knight Riders not opted to send him at the top of the order more than just once?
Sourav Ganguly has scored 9146 runs opening the innings in ODIs. So, whyu00a0 have the Knight Riders not opted to send him at the top of the order more than just once?Kolkata Knight Riders continue to be the talking point of the Indian Premier League. For all the wrong reasons!
Tuesday's loss to Delhi Daredevils in Durban provided another indication of this team being in shambles. Coach John Buchanan is facing vilification which he has never experienced before. While I don't hold a brief for the former Australia coach, I think it is unfair to put the blame squarely on him. I have always believed that players make a coach and certainly not the other way around. If Buchanan was making all the decisions, where were all the senior players? Is Buchanan such a personality who cannot be approached to encourage views, which could help stop the slide? From whatever I know of the man through my interaction with him, this is certainly not the case.
Divided teamKKR appear to be a divided team and the old clichu00e9 holds too true for me not to bring it up: 'United we stand, divided we fall.' They have messed around with a lot of aspects in their game.
The most glaring error according to me was the decision not to have Sourav Ganguly bat at the top of the order. My record book tells me Ganguly has scored 9146 runs opening the innings in one-day international cricket. He emerged as one of the greatest one-day players of his generation batting at the top of the order.
Why this did not dawn on the KKR think-tank which Ganguly may well be a part of is unbelievable. KKR missed out on a terrific player at the top. The decision to play Ganguly in the middle order made a mockery of his ability and reputation as a one-day player.
Quite clearly, the players' failure led to KKR's demise in this tournament. KKR have some good players but they just didn't gel well. We saw some strange moves too.
Ganguly was sent at the top in one match and for the next game, he returned to the middle order. Then, we had a superlative player like Brendon McCullum coming in at number seven in one game. That was crap.
The presence of senior players in the side is critical. In times of crisis, being proactive helps. I am not sure KKR had enough of that. They had more than enough controversy as we all know and all those incidents got to the players.
Even before leaving for South Africa KKR had to deal with the multiple captains theory floated by Buchanan. It may have been just a ploy to mislead the opposition. But as KKR discovered later, only the win column matters; not theories. It has ended in depression and even a few good games cannot get them back into the competition. It is never too early to look ahead though.
There is no better road to take than the one which lends itself to a lot of introspection and acceptance of defeat in a positive fashion.
