Back at the helm, Ganguly hopes for turnaround
The high-profile Shah Rukh Khan-owned team has been one of the disappointments of the IPL so far, but under the new management team of captain Ganguly and coach Dav Whatmore, this year’s campaign holds plenty of promise. I’m not too keen on talking about what's in the past,” Ganguly said ahead of his team’s opening match against the Deccan Chargers on Friday.
One of India’s most successful captains spoke of the challenges of leading in the Twenty20 format. “You have to plan ahead,” he agreed, “but I'm a believer of execution and not a firm believer of too many team meetings and too many ideas. You have to let the players play to their strengths. I'm not a firm believer of trying to change them, just letting them know the amount of runs we need on the board to win a cricket match and let them do the best way they are capable of doing. If I keep changing them at this late stage, I don't think it's going to help.”
The opening week, with most teams missing several key international stars, would be crucial, Ganguly noted. “A lot of teams are trying to get their internationals together in place. Every win at any stage of the tournament will take the teams closer to the semifinals. We will be playing three or four games in the first week and hopefully, if we can win most of them, it will put us in an advantageous position to go to the next round.
We will try and deal with that and hope for the best.” KKR themselves will be without Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum in the early stages. “We have good players in (Brad) Hodge, (Owais) Shah and Angelo Mathews. Yes, we will miss McCullum and Gayle, but we will wait for them. Gayle should be here very shortly.”
This IPL will have two strategy breaks of two and a half minutes each every innings, the first between overs six and eight at the discretion of the fielding side and the second between overs 11 and 16 picked by the batting side. “We will take it as a break and try and do everything which keeps the opponent under control,” Ganguly said.