Clash Of The Titans!

The deteriorating relationship between Khan and Ganguly is at the heart of why the Knight Riders’ brand dropped Kolkata, says SHANTANU GUHA RAY

A FORTNIGHT AGO, as he stepped onto the tarmac of Mumbai airport after his meeting with Shah Rukh Khan, Sourav Ganguly picked up his Blackberry and whispered “I do not trust anyone, really, I do not trust anyone!” The former Indian skipper, on a high barely a month before because of his involvement in the selection of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team and the cheer leaders, had a premonition of what would happen once the team landed in Cape Town for the trial matches before the start of the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). A week before the crucial meeting at Mannat, home of KKR owner and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, Ganguly had skirmished with coach John Buchanan over the latter’s multiple captaincy theory and had set Kolkata afire by first disagreeing with, and then agreeing to the format.

Warring knights? Buchanan, Khan and Ganguly during a press meet in Kolkata

That the tension would spill over in the land of Springboks was obvious. King Khan, who had already dropped the word ‘Kolkata’ from the team’s name to ensure that it no longer belonged to Ganguly’s land, had told him he was no longer team captain. A distraught Ganguly had been told that Buchanan felt New Zealander Brendon Barrie McCullum was a fitter and better choice. In fact, the offer had first been made to Chris Gayle of the West Indies, who had politely declined, ostensibly because he didn’t know most of the players of the Knight Riders (KR).

“What can I do after this? Do you expect me to tell him [SRK] that he needs to explain why I was not selected as the skipper? I do not understand this: Why do I have to be the punching bag every time? Remember what they did to get me out of the side? The demand was to get rid of the seniors. Now everyone is playing: Dravid, Sachin, Laxman. Age is not a factor with them but it was for me. It seems it was my wicket they all wanted,” Ganguly said in an interview to a regional daily, before going alone to check out Cape Town’s flea market. The lonesome excursion showed that he had no friends in the team and trusted no one.

The next day, as the teams marched to take their positions during the opening ceremony, Ganguly tried to put on a brave face as he stood behind McCullum. His wife, Dona, and his parents, meanwhile, had urged him to return home. Ganguly declined. “I knew something like this would happen and that’s the reason I have poured my blood and sweat into the three trial matches. I had to prove to them that I have it in me. My parents and wife advised me to return. But I want to stay and play. I do not have a choice. Money is not the factor. I have to play well,” he told a friend.

All along, SRK maintained a stoic silence. When pressed by reporters, he was at his diplomatic best. He termed the stripping of Ganguly’s captaincy as a decision taken for the betterment of the team. He said the former captain too was involved in the decision making. “It was a cricketing decision. People who have a cricketing head and mind — Dada (Ganguly), (John) Buchanan and the team management — had taken the decision. I hope it is for the betterment of the team,” he told reporters. The reality was, in fact, quite the opposite because Ganguly was not part of the decision. He was merely informed.

Khan was clear about his priorities. For the past year, he has been troubled by a host of issues and had told friends that he would make changes. Some of the KR franchisees had asked for reasons but shut up when Khan told them that he understood the game well and those who played it too. “I am a thinking owner and not a dumb one,” he told a confidant, who is also a franchisee.

An incident on the sets of Chak De! India gives an insight into SRK’s personality. Unhappy with how the victory scene was envisaged, he had told director Shimit Amin that he wanted to be pictured standing quietly near the tricolour and watching the girls rejoice. Khan, say his friends, was impressed after he had seen the coach of the Yugoslav volleyball team behaving in a similar way after that country’s team had won a major title.

A diehard Manchester United fan, Khan has also been influenced by the coachis- the-boss syndrome and wants to build his team on the same module. But Ganguly would not take it in the first year. After all, the team was KKR and he was its biggest icon. But relations between Khan and Ganguly, currently at its lowest ebb, had started deteriorating when the Left Front government pushed in an entertainment tax on KKR matches at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Ganguly, whose clout in Writer’s Building is considerable, had done nothing to help. Ganguly also remained silent when officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) raised questions about Khan’s entry into the players’ dressing room. Worse, Khan had to wait for the team’s last match — fourteenth, in that order — to meet the state’s Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. “It was like a Reliance CEO not understanding what Mukesh Ambani would love,” a top KR official told TEHELKA, adding that Ganguly’s I-know-what- I’m-doing attitude did not go down well with the owner.

In many ways, in the burial of Ganguly lies the transformation of KKR into KR. McCullum has the captain’s cap while Buchanan has Khan’s loyalty. Remember the scene in Chak De! India where Khan had remarked to the rebel that there could only be one goonda in the team? Clearly, Ganguly has met the same fate. Those still ready to spare a tear for him feel that Khan, an icon himself, should have handled another one with more style. That he did not has perhaps led to the saddest scene in this forced melodrama.

WRITER’S EMAIL
shantanu@tehelka.com