A couple of years back was the concept of the Super-sub similarly debated, and I loved that concept. One of the biggest stupidities in that concept was the fact that the Super-sub had to be named before the toss; the captain winning the toss lucked out more than the opposing captain, which I feel was unfair. Otherwise, it was a good concept as we saw the teams, particularly captains and coaches, thinking on their feet much more than in a traditional non Super-sub format. Yes, cricket is indeed played with a bat and ball but using one's brain need not be considered a waste of time.

When the KRR coach, John Buchanan, trotted out the multiple captain's concept, it was not because it was an amazing concept that I was excited but because it involved a little cerebral involvement along with the normal bat / ball routine. In fact, I found thoughts like this to be one of the plus points of the franchise system; one did not have to wait for the ICC to make up a rule; one could do it by self. With so many franchises, they could all try out stuff which might be out of the ordinary, and what fun it would be.

While the other franchises have not exactly rushed to embrace the outlandish, the KKR team management certainly gave it their two cents worth. What bombed was the way they did it.

There are theories that it was all a plan by the Australian members to get Ganguly away from the Captaincy. Seriously speaking, why would anyone bother? Buchanan and gang would get their greenbacks whether Ganguly remained captain or not, and not a penny more even if he did not remain captain. While there was a power struggle between the captain (in the first edition) and coach, the boss had already backed the Australian, so really there was no need to target an aging Ganguly whose remaining lifespan as a player is definitely shorter than the remaining lifespan of Buchanan as a coach, for KKR or someone else. The only reason could be that Ganguly did not fit into the Australian's vision for KKR, and that call is as fair as the calls made by Ganguly in his tenure as the Indian captain, where certain players figured in his scheme of things and certain players didn't. The man in charge decides; then Ganguly was in charge and now Buchanan is.

Greg Chappell found out the hard way that in India one has to be careful with handling the stars; they can make or break you. After Chappell had made all the mistakes that he possibly could during his tenure (and those mistakes, I think, were not in his ideas which were extremely sound but in the way he discounted the star power of those who didn't count in his scheme of things), what makes Buchanan's tenure more idiotic is that he learnt absolutely nothing from his countryman's experiences. Carrying a laptop isn't all that it is made out to be, obviously.

What really made the whole thing shitty was the way the Ganguly sacking was implemented, with the subtleness of a sledgehammer blow; bluff talk on the outside by both SRK and Buchanan only made the sacking more humiliating when it inevitably came. The underhandedness of the act is what spoiled the entire KKR party in the second edition of the IPL, not the fact itself that Ganguly did not figure in the coach's scheme of things. The team that was fractured by the humiliation of the team's heavyweight player is fractured today still, and Buchanan and SRK have the most to answer for that.

I think the IPL's icon concept is more ridiculous than the four captain theory but that was done up front and open. Chappell's thoughts were scandalous to the hero worshippers of our land but again they were blunt and un-apologetic. SRK and Buchanan have acted in a way where if I were a player in that squad, I wouldn't trust them to help me cross the road.

I think Ganguly's worth in the IPL is over-rated in terms of the sum he takes home but that is between him and his franchise that knowingly got into the game. I think that the Fake IPL Player, blogging away the dirty secrets of the hitherto elite cricket crowd, while in his own mind having a good enough cause to take the franchise down still stinks because poison pens do stink, whatever the reasons might be. I think the members of the fractured KKR team must accept a lot of the blame for their current standing in the league table because even considering the management phuck ups, surely anyone calling himself a professional cricketer should give a better performance than the crap they have been dishing out in this IPL edition.

Most of all, it shows what bad management will do to a team that isn't all that bad. The damage is huge, and while SRK as the owner doesn't really face the sack, he would be wise to re-think on whether the reins of his dream team are indeed in safe hands. Going away from Buchanan doesn't mean moving towards Ganguly (Geez, when will we move away from personalities?) and while the current IPL is washed up for the KKR, there is plenty of food for thought for the owner in terms of IPL 2010.