Kolkata Knight Riders’ selection troubles has been in the news throughout this Indian Premier League (IPL) season and a new chapter got added to it when captain Shreyas Iyer mentioned that the CEO of the team is also involved in it. KKR have chopped and changed players throughout the season, even making as many as five changes to the line up on Tuesday for their match against the Mumbai Indians.
The ploy worked, however, with KKR winning the match by 52 runs. After the match, Iyer spoke about the difficulty that comes with having to making constant changes in the team lineup, which was when he made the comments. Former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja said that he was not surprised by the comments as KKR CEO Venky Mysore is known to be involved in the running of the team.
“There is no surprise in it. This is the CEO’s team. If they win the CEO gets praise and if they lose CEO gets the stick. This has always been the case, we have seen instances of this being clear earlier also,” Jadeja said on Cricbuzz.
“There are all kinds of opinions, some think that he shouldn’t be involved. Some think that even the coach shouldn’t be involved it should be the captain’s call. Some even think let the captain be, you don’t know if he is going to be around or not, let the CEO decide things,” he said.
Jadeja said it would be quite difficult to tell big international players that they are being dropped. Australia Test captain Pat Cummins, widely rated as the best Test bowler in the world and among the best in all formats, was one of the players who had prolonged spells on the sidelines.
“He is right, it is quite difficult to tell a player that he won’t be playing. Especially if that player is the best bowler in the world or if he is someone is playing T20 for India and you yourself are not getting a spot. Whether it be captain, coach, or CEO, it is quite difficult. At least we know now that the CEO runs this team and not the captain,” said Jadeja.
It’s easy for us to understand, the next time we see the team play, that the captain has no role in this.
