John Buchanan Opines Sourav Ganguly Was An Unfit Captain For The T20 Format
Aug 30, 2020 at 3:25 PM
John Buchanan, who is a former Kolkata Knight Riders coach has revealed that he did not believe Sourav Ganguly was fit to play the T20 format either as a player or as a captain. He was of the view that the Indian legend who is currently BCCI president was not suited for the requirements of the IPL or T20 cricket in general.
John Marshall Buchanan is a former world cup winning coach of Australian national team which won 2003 World Cup beating Sourav Ganguly led India at final. He was the coach of KKR in 2008 and 2009 but was sacked after the team finished last in 2009 IPL.
John Buchanan: Sourav Ganguly Unable To Take Quick Decisions
In an interview with Sportstar, the Australian mentioned that he even had talks with the former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly regarding the subject. According to him, a captain needs to make spot-on decisions on the field in a T20 game, and the former Indian skipper was simply unable to do so.
He said:“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. I just couldn’t believe he was suited to the format of the game and certainly not in a formal captaincy role.”
Sourav Ganguly and John Buchanan worked together at Kolkata Knight Riders in the inaugural 2008 edition of IPL, during which the franchise finished at the sixth place out of eight teams. The coach was subsequently unhappy with his captaincy and had Brendon McCullum take over as skipper for the 2009 IPL.
However, the team ended up finishing last, and he was subsequently sacked. Sourav Ganguly led KKR in 2010, but both he and Brendon McCullum were released in 2011 and instead, KKR management appointed Gautam Gambhir as captain which paid rich dividends as KKR won 2o12 and 2014 IPL under his captaincy.
John Buchanan: ‘Split Captaincy’ Could Be Important In IPL
As the coach of KKR, John Buchanan had tried to introduce split captaincy but the then skipper of KKR Sourav Ganguly opposed it.
The 67-year-old, however, still is of the belief that the idea of split captaincy is still relevant in the IPL. In a T20 match several decisions have to be taken fairly quickly. He believes that it’s a burden for one player to handle all these responsibilities together and every player would need to act as their own captain.
John Buchanan said:“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.”
John Buchanan’s two-year stint as KKR coach in the IPL was full of controversies. Apart from the poor performance of the franchise in 2008 and 2009, Indian opener legendary Sunil Gavaskar had even accused him besides his coaching staff of racial discrimination against Indian players.
Despite John Buchanan’s claims, Sourav Ganguly had amassed 1031 runs in 40 matches for Kolkata Knight Riders and now-defunct Pune Warriors India.