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IPL 2020: KKR CEO Venky Mysore finally breaks silence on Sourav Ganguly's omission in 2011 - WATCH

During a recent interview, the CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) Venky Mysore claimed that dropping Sourav Ganguly was not a difficult decision for him, but a tough one for the owners instead.

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Venky Mysore, Sourav Ganguly
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Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) appointed the "Price of Kolkata", Sourav Ganguly, as their skipper during the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) back in 2008. The former Indian captain led the Kolkata-franchise for the coming three seasons until KKR's 6th pace finish in IPL 2010 and Gautam Gambhir was bought in to replace "Dada". KKR CEO Venky Mysore, who came in ahead of the 2011 campaign, has finally disclosed how tough it was for the owners to not retain Ganguly going into the 4th edition of the IPL.

During a recent interview, Venky said that dropping Sourav was not a difficult decision for him, but a tough one for the owners instead.

"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 Mysore said on 'The RK show' over on YouTube.

"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."

"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," he added.

"I am not a complete lone-ranger maverick who runs off and wants to do my own thing. But at the same time, my entire career, I was used to being given the autonomy to operate, to also be accountable at the same time. I used to report to boards," Mysore further claimed.

"But it could easily have been a micro-managing kind of situation, or second-guessing the decisions I have made, or saying that ‘yeah, but we made those announcements, but let’s not do that’. But they stood completely behind me. That is why they took a lot of flak for that and heat. As an organisation, it was tougher for them. But to be perfectly honest, it was not that tougher for me to make that decision," he added.

Under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir, KKR went on to bag two IPL titles in 2012 and 2014. Going into the 13th edition of IPL, the Kolkata side will be under the guidance of Dinesh Karthik and will be looking to better their 5th place finish from last year.

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