Moving on from Ganguly didn’t feel like a big deal to me personally, reveals Venky Mysore

The presence of the tag-team of Sourav Ganguly and Shah Rukh Khan made the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) the most popular franchise ahead of the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and big things were expected from the club, that also boasted other superstars such as Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum and Shoaib Akhtar.

However, much to the shock of their fans, the club, bafflingly, finished 6th, 8th and 6th in each of the first three editions under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly and the dismal performances, in turn, resulted in the management doing the unthinkable ahead of the IPL 2011 mega-auction, which was doing away with the services of their skipper and Bengal icon Ganguly.

The controversial decision from the management left a set of KKR fans outraged, but in an interview with renowned broadcaster RK, KKR CEO Venky Mysore, who had a hand in the club moving on from Ganguly, revealed that the move did not feel like a ‘big deal’ to him due to him being an outsider. Venky Mysore referred to himself as an outsider as it was only post-2010 IPL that he took charge as CEO.

“I’ll break that down into two parts. Personally, for me, it didn’t see like a big decision (not retaining Sourav Ganguly), 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,” Mysore said in the latest episode of ‘The RK show’ uploaded on Youtube, reported Hindustan Times.

“This was like someone completely coming in from the outside, which I was, literally from the outside. Eventually, I realised, that for the organisation and for the owners, it was tough. It’s a decision and an approach that I proposed as I was given the mandate.”

Further analyzing the controversial decision to move on from Ganguly, Mysore revealed that he knew it was going to be a gamble, but went ahead with the plan as it was a ‘different’ approach. The incumbent KKR CEO further attributed KKR’s success to the franchise owners. 

“I look back at it, and I basically said this, that ‘I don’t know if it’s the right thing or 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.”

The move eventually worked like a charm as just one season after doing away with the services of Ganguly, KKR won their maiden IPL title in 2012 under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir.