Sourav Ganguly was not suited to T20 cricket as player or captain, says former KKR coach John Buchanan

Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly is regarded by many as one of the best captains of the Indian cricket team.

‘Dada’, as he was called by most of his teammates, is also credited for taking up a young team, and giving it a formidable structure. Many cricketers like Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif, who went on to be some of the best Indian players later on, credit Sourav Ganguly for assisting them in their early days in cricket.

Despite having a very good record with the Indian cricket team as a skipper, Sourav Ganguly was not able to replicate his success in the Indian Premier League. He played the first five editions of the tournament, playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders from 2008 to 2010, and then for the Pune Warriors India in 2011 and 2012.

At KKR, when Ganguly was the skipper, the team was coached by the Australian World Cup winning coach John Buchanan.

John Buchanan revealed that he didn’t believe Sourav Ganguly was suited to play the T20 format as a captain or as a player. According to him, while playing the shortest format, a captain needs to make quick decisions, a quality that the former Indian captain lacked.

“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,” John Buchanan told Sportstar.

‘Split captaincy is what the IPL needs’

KKR had finished at sixth place in the inaugural edition of the IPL and as a result, Buchanan handed the responsibility of the team to Brendon McCullum instead of Ganguly in the 2009 season. However, the team ended up finishing last in IPL 2009, and Buchanan was subsequently sacked. Also, Ganguly was re-appointed as captain for IPL 2010.

After KKR’s failure in IPL 2009, John Buchanan was also mocked for his ‘split captaincy theory, but the Australian feels that it is very much relevant in IPL.

“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,” Buchanan said.