John Buchanan wanted to remove Sourav Ganguly as KKR captain – Aakash Chopra

Former Kolkata Knight Riders batsman Aakash Chopra has revealed that coach John Buchanan wanted to remove Sourav Ganguly from the franchise’s captaincy. Ganguly who had great experience of leading the Indian team over the years, was selected to lead KKR in the maiden season of the IPL.

However, Buchanan, the Australian coach, had different methods as compared to Ganguly. Chopra, who observed all the controversy from close corners, disclosed that it was all good in the early days of the inaugural season. Ganguly was known to lead from the front and it was not the first time that he had a hard time working with an Australian coach.

In fact, Ganguly had himself revealed later Buchanan wanted to influence the on-field decision and the captain had to look at the dugout before making his decisions.

Meanwhile, Buchanan was successful as Sourav Ganguly was removed as captain after KKR finished at the sixth place in the points table in IPL 2008 and failed to make it to the playoff stages.

Subsequently, Brendon McCullum, who had provided a whirlwind start to the IPL, was handed over the captaincy baton in IPL 2009. However, the team’s performance was even worse in McCullum’s leadership as the franchise finished the tournament as wooden spooners.

Chopra recalled that Buchanan batted Ganguly in the lower order and wanted him to quit on the captaincy.

“When he came the first year, there was John Buchanan, Ricky Ponting was also there. Sourav Ganguly was the captain and I have seen this from close quarters. The relationship was alright to begin with, it was good at the start,” Chopra was quoted as saying on his YouTube channel.

“But after that, it did not remain good. Because his way of working was different and Sourav had a different temperament. In the end, he also wanted to remove Sourav Ganguly from captaincy, which happened the following season. Because in the first season he came at No.6 and in the second season he came at No. 8, when Sourav was not the captain,” he stated.

In fact, after poor performances in the first two seasons, John Buchanan was removed from the coaching role. Subsequently, Kolkata Knight Riders went on to appoint Dav Whatmore as the coach for IPL 2010.

Meanwhile, Brendon McCullum is currently the head coach of the team and the team will be led by Dinesh Karthik in IPL 2020, whenever the tournament happens. It is reported that the IPL can take place in Sri Lanka or UAE.

On the other hand, Aakash Chopra could only manage 53 runs in seven IPL matches at a mundane average of 8.83.