Franchise owner Shah Rukh Khan brought together the cream of world cricket to take the IPL by storm. But it all turned sour as controversy off the pitch, and a lack of teamwork on it, sent the Bollywood star's boys tumbling out of the tournament. He couldn't have performed the script better himself.Yusuf Pathan of the Rajasthan Royals sent the ball flying into the stands and it was all over for the Kolkata Knight Riders.
With the six-wicket defeat, their hopes of a semi-final berth have been shattered. But the fans of this team need not be too downhearted. They have two more matches to go and after that nobody will see the men in black. The team which was high on glamour right from the beginning, went out on a low.
So what went wrong? The answer has already been revealed by the shrewd Indian media and also the controversy created by the team itself. Out of the 12 matches played, the Knight Riders won five through Brendon McCullum’s whirlwind innings, Murali Kartik's spin, Sourav Ganguly’s all-round heroics and Shoaib Akhtar’s comeback. So four out of the five wins came in the form of one-man-shows. But even in the shortest format of the game, cricket is a team affair. individual brilliance can earn the team rewards once in a while, but not always.
"Four out of the five wins for KKR
came in the form of one-man shows"
The Knight Riders were never able to come together as a team. Interestingly one of the ads of the team featuring owner Shah Rukh Khan, captain Ganguly and some of the team members shows them fighting each other. In the end Ganguly holds two of his team-mates and says thus: “I hate these guys. But I hate to lose even more." Interesting.
There are times when truth is stranger than fiction. Controversy followed the team and on several occasions the content of the ad was actually happening.
The first controversy started when the captain of Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne, accused Ganguly of not playing the game in the right spirit. Ganguly responded, pointing out that Warne was no saint. The very same day after that incident team-mate Umar Gul came out into the open expressing disappointment over Ganguly’s decisions and that he needed to learn how to lead a side in the Twenty20 format. Then came the outburst of Salman Butt wanting to know why he was being sidelined.
"There are times when truth is stranger than fiction.
The content of the ad ‘I hate these guys.
But I hate to lose even more’ was actually happening
With players under the microscope, how could the team's owner, Badhshah of Bollywood, remain silent? Khan also expressed dissatisfaction over Ganguly’s captaincy and strategy. After the loss to Chennai. King Khan said he had wanted his team to field first after winning toss. But Sourav elected to bat and after losing the match Khan was reported to have kicked some chairs in the dressing room
The Knight Riders were never able to work together as a team, each player appeared to be in it for themsleves. The inspirational team anthem, its publicity machine and the support of an exceptional franchisee couldn’t do much for them.
Glamour and controversy became the team's staple diet, not unlike Khan's movie Om Shanthi Om - high on drama and low on substance.
