Sourav Ganguly Join IPL 4 for Pune Warriors

Sourav Ganguly, the former captain of India’s cricket team and a hugely popular figure in his hometown Kolkata, will belatedly play in this year’s Indian Premier League after being signed by bottom-placed Sahara Pune Warriors. Sourav Ganguly will be vice-captain at Pune Warriors.

Ganguly replaces bowler Ashish Nehra, who has been ruled out of the 2011 IPL because of injury, Abhijit Sarkar, the team’s director and head of corporate communications at Sahara, told news channel NDTV.

Ganguly will be vice-captain at Pune Warriors, one of two new IPL franchises this year. Pune Warriors, who are led by Yuvraj Singh, the man-of-the-World Cup, launched their campaign in style with two wins but have since lost six matches in a row and now languish at the bottom of the table with just four points. Ganguly, therefore, has very little time to influence his new team’s fortunes.

Last Time news was that Sourav was first approached by Kochi Tuskers Kerala but their application was rejected by the IPL’s Governing Council.

All the best Dada & Pune Warriors

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Kapil : Ganguly's exclusion not purely on cricketing basis

Sourav Ganguly's omission from the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League is not "purely on cricketing basis", says former India captain Kapil Dev. In what turned out to be one of the major embarrassments in his chequered career, India's most successful cricket captain Ganguly was left red-faced as none of the 10 franchises put his name up in the wish list after both rounds of auctions that concluded in Bangalore on Sunday.

"Lot of other reasons are there. I don't think merely on cricketing basis, he is not there. It's not on purely cricketing basis (his exclusion)," said Kapil. "I always felt that Ganguly should be the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders otherwise he should not be playing.

Because of his nature, commitment, determination and the way he works with the team or what he did to the Indian team, this all makes a lot of difference," the 1983 World cup winning captain Kapil told a TV news channel.  There was every reason that the fourth highest scorer in last year's league felt insulted as he had prolonged his cricketing career only to play in the IPL. With franchises turning their backs on him, it was certainly one of the most ignominious ends for the Prince of Kolkata.

And Kapil said without Ganguly, KKR will lose its fan following. "Without Sourav, KKR is nothing. A lot of time confusion was there whether he should be playing as a player or leading the side as the captain. If I was there, I had said lead the side to best of your abilities otherwise just say goodbye to cricket.

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Don't dream a team in Kolkata without Sourav Ganguly: Shah Rukh Khan

You may loathe him or love him but if you want to win over Kolkata, you can’t ignore Sourav Ganguly. Not even if your name is Shah Rukh Khan. Post the auction and the effigy burnings, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) owner must have realised that it is difficult to run a team in the city without Ganguly as part of it. And, as DNA had reported on Monday, the team is contemplating offering him a role in the team management — be it as a mentor or otherwise.

“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 in Durban. “We know the importance of Dada’s contribution. We will find a suitable position for him in the side if there is an expression of interest from his side,” Venki Mysore, CEO of KKR, told DNA, elaborating on the team owner’s statement. He, however, would not specify what kind of role that would be but he said they would be discussing it soon.

“We will sit with him (Ganguly) and find out what we can do,” Mysore said, indicating that the KKR management will be touching base with Ganguly soon. Shah Rukh refused to speak on why other teams had ignored the former India captain. “I don’t think I should be commenting for nine other people. There are 350 to 400 players. There are 10 teams with think-tanks varying in hundred of numbers… there are the permutations and combinations. I don’t think any of us can comment on who should pick who. I don’t think we have the right to do that.”

But, according to Mysore, they would have found a role for Ganguly by now if their former captain had not insisted on playing. “Look, he was planning to play and he increased his base price. He was clear that he was looking for playing slot. We had decided to go to the auction with full purse. We were not retaining any player. Now that the auction is over, we can find a way forward,” he said.

Ganguly, meanwhile, has been maintaining a stoic silence. He was not reachable for a comment.

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Former Cricketers Unhappy

Sourav Ganguly’s rejection by IPL bidders was a ‘humiliation’ to his contribution to T20 cricket and it would rob the tournament of its attraction, former cricketers in Jharkhand feel. “It’s a real humiliation to a great player, who contributed to the T20 till last year. It is sad that his name was not even proposed during re-auctioneering,” former first class left-arm spinner Avinash Kumar said. Former Bihar glovesman Ashok Ghosh said “He is a great player. I don’t know the reason behind his non-selection.” “It was sad that Ganguly was not even considered in the re-auction ... his participation could have been a motivation to youngsters,” said another former Ranji cricketer Manoj Yadav.

Former Bihar Ranji captain Adil Hussein and his cricketing partner Anwar Mushtaq felt Ganguly deserved another stint as he was still in competitive cricket. “The auctioneering has surprised us. He could have attracted a crowd anywhere in the world,” Hussein felt. “I have my doubts about their cricketing sense if they had thought Sourav could not have lasted for three years,” he added. Chanchal Bhattacharya, one of three coaches of Dhoni during his formative years, said “I think both left-handers, Ganguly and Brian Lara, deserved a slot in any of the teams and would have drawn crowds on their own.”

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Shahrukh Khan: No IPL team possible in Kolkata without Sourav Ganguly

Kolkata Knight Riders' owner and Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan on Monday said he would try and find a role for Sourav Ganguly in his IPL team after the former India skipper remained unsold. Ganguly, who led KKR in the last edition, was left red-faced as none of the 10 franchisees showed interest in buying him at the two-day auction in Bangalore. 

"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. The fans of Ganguly on Sunday burnt Khan's effigies in Kolkata protesting his exclusion from the team. 

Shah Rukh refused to speak on why other teams ignored the former India captain.  "I don't think I should be commenting on the 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 who? I don't think we have the right to do that. 

"Auction is actually a chance like. It is very difficult to be completely confirmed on what you do in the auction. So things go wrong, kind of money you have, which players come first, so lots of decisions have to be made," he said.

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Bad News for Sourav Ganguly Fan's

If it was darkness at noon for Sourav Ganguly and his fans on Saturday, it turned out to be a 'Black Sunday' for them as they waited endlessly, hoping against hope that one of the 10 franchises would pick up the former India captain on the rebound at the IPL auction in Bangalore.  It was not to be. And as the two-day jamboree ended at 6pm sharp, the writing on the wall was clear: Sourav would not be playing in IPL. There was complete disbelief when his name was announced by the auctioneer on Saturday and there was no response from the franchise owners. 

On Sunday, disbelief gave way to indignation as none of the franchises pencilled him out to be re-auctioned even though 28 players from the unsold list were given a second chance.  UP captain Mohammad Kaif, one of Sourav's proteges, in fact, was given a third chance and finally found a buyer in Royal Challengers Bangalore.  Sourav's teammate in Kolkata Knight Riders, Murali Kartik, who too had gone unsold the first time around, hit pay dirt when he was re-presented at the auction with Pune Warriors buying him for $400,000 — exactly double his base price. 

It was almost as if the 10 franchises had come to the auction with a mindset that the likes of Sourav, Chris Gayle, Mark Boucher and Brian Lara were not to be touched.  The franchises' reluctance to buy West Indies and English players was understandable because of the uncertainty over their availability for the entire duration of IPL-4, that starts on April 8 and concludes on May 20. 

However, it was baffling why teams like Pune, Kochi and Deccan Chargers — who had plenty of money in their kitty — refused to go for Sourav even though they didn't have enough Indian batsmen on their rosters.  It was a humiliation of sorts for a man who the BCCI had anointed as an icon player when the IPL was conceived. For the record, of the 48 capped Indian players who went on auction, only three, including Sourav, remained unsold. 

The other two — Wasim Jaffer and VRV Singh — could not find a buyer even though, unlike Sourav, they were put up for re-auction.  The KKR management, having splurged on the opening day of the auction, operated on a low key on Sunday. They spent half-a-million dollars on Laxmipathy Balaji and a quarter-a-million on Jaydev Unadkat to bolster their pace attack even as Bengal boy Ashok Dinda was snatched away by Delhi Daredevils. 

KKR also made a couple of low-key purchases in Dutch all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate and under-20 Australian fast bowler James Pattinson, but still failed to address the balance of the side. Having bought seven foreign players and only five Indians, they now have no option but to recruit heavily from CAB first division club Kalighat, which has served as a supply chain for them over the past three IPL seasons.  There is talk of Sourav taking up a mentoring role with one of the IPL sides, but the man himself remained tight-lipped about his future plans. 

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