Indeed, there’s nothing special about Sourav. But his case is certainly unique. Few IPL players have been as closely associated with the city they played for as him. That apart, unlike most other players who have failed the bidding test, the former India captain is a proven IPL performer. Both in IPL 1 and IPL 3, he is the most successful player for Kolkata Knight Riders. He has more IPL man of the match awards than any other rejected player. Putting everything together, his case is radically different from every other cricketer deemed not good enough for IPL 4. Not that this is an open and shut case. The cricketer surely didn’t help his own cause first by failing in the Ranji Trophy games he played this season and second, if raising his own base price from 200,000 to 400,000 dollars. That apart, in quite a few IPL knocks last season, Sourav tended to hold up one end. One also felt that his fourth-gear wasn’t as good as it used to be, say, five years ago. But overall, purely as a cricketer, he was still great value to his side.
The Kolkata Crowd:
Lets analyse why KKR does get this much hype and furor. The team's star factor is obviously the Don of Bollywood-SRK. The next factor is obviously Dada. Because you can't afford to separate Dada from Kolkata. No one can forget the event when a section of crowd in Eden Gardens booed INDIAN team when they were playing against South Africa in an international ODI match at Eden Gardens, when the selectors dropped Dada.
Kolkatta-wallahs are among the greatest patrons of sports in the world.Unfortunately, the city is starved of its own cricket icons. Which is why Sourav has come to occupy such a premier position in the hearts of its citizens. True, he has retired from international cricket. But nobody really has replaced him. The Indian Test squad does really need a good replacement for Sourav in that spot if they want to retain the Number one position for a long time. The desire to watch him bat remains as intense as ever in Kolkata. Even today, if there is one cricketer who can ensure bums on the seats at Eden Gardens, it is Sourav. If there is one cricketer who can ensure sale of merchandise for KKR, it is Sourav. By dumping him, KKR has cut its most binding link with the city.
KKR squad for first three IPL seasons:
Yes the squad is pretty decent. They had good players like McCullum, Gayle, Shane Bond, Salman butt, Akhtar, Umar Gul, David Hussey. Unfortunately there is no solid Indian player to contribute in the middle order. They relied heavily on the pakistani players like butt, Gul and Akhtar which backfired a lot when Pakistanis were not allowed to play in the IPL. Other than that, they relied on McCullum, Gayle and Hussey a lot. Sadly those guys didn't perform up to their expectations. Especially McCullum when there are lot of money riding on him, he failed in almost all the matches apart from the inaugural IPL match where he set the bangalore crowd ablaze when he muscled 158 runs. Gayle doesn't quite look as destructive as he should be. The same can be said of David Hussey who hasn't contributed significantly to KKR.
Apart from the foreigners, there are likes of Pujara, Tiwary, Lakshi Shukla, Saha who are not capable of performing in the big stage. Sourav Ganguly is the only Indian batsman who contributed exceptionally for KKR in IPL seasons 1 and 3.
In the bowling department, Ishant Sharma didn't look like he played for Indian team by looking at the figures when he played for KKR. Murali Karthik is the only bowler who performed well under these torried circumstances. KKR also didn't buy Murali Karthik back for the next three seasons.
Dada's performance in the last IPL:
If you seee his performance last season, Ganguly led from the front and played many match winning knocks.
In 3rd edition KKR has managed 7 wins which is equal to that of CSK(tournament winner). Out of these 7 wins 4 were purely because of The Unsold player.
One of these match wining knocks where he makes 88(54) against Deccan Charges. If you can't recollect , i'm sure you won't, just watch this ( from 3:47 to 4:37) where he belts Pragjan Ojha for 3 sixes in a over. Against RR, he scored a match winning 75*(50) in the chase. If anyone has doubt in his sporting ability since he didn't play any international match after 2008 just watch this.
This match in which Dada made 86* against Kings XI punjas in IPL 2008 is a stand out performance and close my hearts. Watch out for the last over when KKR needs 15 runs and Dada belts Irfan Pathan for two sixes. In the whole chase of 175, Dada is the only player who anchored the innings, playing sensibly and pacing the inning at the very best. I'm sure this is one of the best close encounters in IPL 2008 but many would have forgotten this innings because no one cares when he wins matches.
Everyone knows about the most talked about 'multi captaincy' concept introduced by John Buchanan which made everyone to raise eyebrows. In the end Dada was thrown out of captaincy and McCullum was made the captain. Nothing helped KKR, finally ended up in the bottom of the table.
The Auction:
During the auction for IPL4, Ganguly's name was called out ninth in the list. None of the 10 teams bothered to move when Ganguly's name was called out. Also as many may feel that he would have been sold if he was drawn out later in the auction. But thats not true because none of the franchises were interested in buying Dada even when they suggested 27 names for re-auctioning which included names like Mohammed Kaif.So the reason is clear, no one wants Dada whatever the case may be. In fact as most of the Bengalis thought that atleast Dada would have been taken by KKR in the re-auction seems to be false. Although KKR has enough money to buy Dada after the auction is over. (Money left with KKR is marginally more than $400,000 which is needed to buy Dada)
Coming to the other nine teams , the newbies like Pune and Kochi also didn't bother to get Ganguly if not as a bastman atleast for his "experience and leadership qualities".
Comparison with other biggies:
If the reason being Ganguly not playing international cricket for two years. What would you say for Andrew Symonds who was bought by Mumbai Indians for a whopping $875,000. I couldn't think of any decent inning from Symonds who played for Deccan charges for the past three seasons. Lets compare Laxman and dravid's performance against Dada's. I'm not really under-estimating Laxman and Dravid in this comparsion. But the stats shows that Dada is a better T20 player than the other two. In fact his match winning knocks prove this.
KKR line up in IPL4:
Again KKR failed to get a decent playing 11 for next three seasons. The major agony in the past three seasons of the IPL for KKR continues: no decent local Indian player to fit in the middle order, no good bowling attack. Although now they have the old warhorse Brett Lee in their side, KKR has made a gamble by taking the injury-plagued bowler as the leading pacer in their side. Regarding the batting lineup i would say its pretty decent with the likes of Gambir and Kallis. But they didn't manage their money well to buy more capable players like Duminy,Michael Hussey,Davy Jacobs.
Let see in this IPL , if KKR does put up a decent performance and find a placed in semifinals, obviously the reason for that in many minds would be the 'exclusion for Sourav Ganguly' as a master stroke. But what if the team again flunk as it did the same in the past three editions. The reason might be again Sourav Ganguly .. who knows ..
When everyone wrote off Sourav after being dropped from the team, he made a dramatic comeback winning the Man-of-the-series against SA. We all know Sourav for his 'never-say-die' attitude. But this time its almost over for him considering the age.
