Jan. 10: Spurned in the Indian Premier League auction by the franchisees, Sourav Ganguly might still play a role in the fourth season beginning April 8.
Kolkata Knight Riders’ owner Shah Rukh Khan on Monday said he would offer Ganguly a mentoring role in the team similar to the one taken up by Anil Kumble for Royal Challengers Bangalore. Ganguly had skippered KKR in the last edition, but with a base price of $400,000, didn’t find any takers from the 10 franchisees during the IPL auction in Bengaluru.
“I would love it, I would love Sourav to be an integral part. You don’t have a team in Kolkata without him. So, I will speak to Dada when I get back,” Shah Rukh said here.
Knight Riders’ chief executive officer Venky Mysore told this newspaper on Monday that if Ganguly was wiling, he could be offered an assistant coach cum talent scout role in the side. “Other teams have former players who scout for talents — Praveen Amre does it for Mumbai Indians. We can have something similar with Sourav.”
Shah Rukh did not want to comment on why Ganguly had gone unsold in the auction. “I don’t think I should be commenting on nine other people. There are 350 to 400 players. There are 10 teams with think-tanks varying in hundred of numbers, the permutations and combinations. I don’t think any of us can comment really on who should pick whom? I don’t think we have the right to do that.
“It is very difficult to be completely confirmed on what you do in the auction. So things go wrong, the kind of money you have, which players come first, so lots of decisions have to be made,” he said.