New Delhi: Kolkata Knight Riders ( KKR) CEO Venky Mysore disclosed that he was ‘unattached’ from the bond that Sourav Ganguly shared with the team and the city in which they decided not to hold on to Ganguly after the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). He revealed that it would have been a tough decision for the owners of the KKR.
Ganguly was roped in by Pune Warriors as a replacement player but he did not look in touch. Dada played his last IPL match in 2012. Mysore revealed releasing Ganguly was not a big decision for him. “I’ll break that into two parts. Personally, for me, it didn’t seem like a big decision, only because I was unattached. If I had been part of the organisation for three years, or two years or one year, it would have been a tougher decision…Eventually, I realised, that for the organisation and for the owners, it was tough,” Mysore said in the latest episode of ‘The RK show’ uploaded on Youtube.
Mysore added, “I look back at it, and I basically said this, that ‘I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do or not, and we may fall flat on our face. But, it’s a different approach. Are we all on board with this?’ If I have to attribute whatever success we have had to one thing, it is the fact that the owners – Shah Rukh, Jay, Juhi – have stood behind the decisions I have proposed.”
KKR’s performance under Sourav Ganguly
The former India captain led KKR in two seasons – 2008 and 2010. The Kolkata-based team had made an amazing start to their IPL 2008 season but only managed five more wins, finishing at the sixth spot. They won seven matches and lost an equal number of matches to finish at the sixth spot in 2010. Ganguly went on to lead Pune and was their adviser in IPL 2012.
