Sourav Ganguly was not suited to T20 cricket, says former KKR coach John Buchanan
Former Kolkata Knight Riders coach John Buchanan has revealed that he did not believe Sourav Ganguly was suited to the T20 format either as a player or as a captain. According to him, the Indian legend’s game did not fit the requirements of the IPL or T20 cricket in general.
In an interview with Sportstar, the Australian stated that he even had conversations with Sourav Ganguly regarding the matter. According to him, a captain needs to make quick decisions on the field in a T20 game, and the former Indian skipper was simply not up for the task.
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 KKR in the 2008 edition of IPL, during which the franchise finished at sixth place. Buchanan was not happy with Ganguly's captaincy and had Brendon McCullum take over for the 2009 IPL. However, the team ended up finishing last, and Buchanan was subsequently sacked.
‘Split Captaincy’ could be important in IPL: John Buchanan
As the coach of KKR, John Buchanan had tried to introduce split captaincy but it did not go down well with Sourav Ganguly, who was the skipper back then.
The 67-year-old, however, believes that this concept is still relevant in the IPL. In a T20 game, several decisions have to be taken in a fairly short amount of time. He believes that it's too much for one player to handle all these responsibilities 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 team, Sunil Gavaskar had even accused Buchanan and his coaching staff of racial discrimination against players from India.