Two press releases arrived back to back. The first was issued at 3pm by JSW Sports, which announced Sourav Ganguly as their Director of Cricket, who will be heading all cricket for the JSW group. The second release came an hour later from the Delhi Capitals official handle, and announced Venugopal Rao and Hemang Badani as Director of Cricket and Head Coach respectively.
The two pieces of paper tell us a story. That Ganguly continues to have the backing of Parth Jindal and JSW. Also that he doesn’t enjoy the backing of GMR, and hence has been pushed back for the next two years with GMR in charge.
Is it disrespectful to him and is it a prudent call? These are questions that many have asked me. More importantly, how did it come to this? We tried piecing the story together, and this is what we now know.
Soon after the IPL was over, both Jindal and Kiran Kumar Grandhi were in agreement that they needed an Indian coach. For seven years, they had invested in Ricky Ponting and he hadn’t delivered much. That’s where Ganguly came in. Could Ganguly be the Indian head coach? Or could there be an arrangement much like KKR last season, where Ganguly assumed the Gautam Gambhir-mentor role alongside an Indian head coach?
According to sources, that was what Jindal wanted. Yuvraj Singh’s name came up as a possible choice, with Rishabh Pant and Ganguly both enjoying a great relationship with him. During the IPL owners’ meeting in Mumbai, Jindal and Grandhi spent considerable time with each other, ideating, and all of these options were discussed. Eventually, Ganguly met them on the third day and that’s when both these options were formally presented. While Jindal had no issues, Grandhi did. With him wanting to run the franchise differently, there was a stalemate.
However, through the period of disagreement, relations stayed cordial and there was no bad blood. It was just that things weren’t working, with both owners wanting to run the team differently. For Jindal, Ganguly was non-negotiable, and that is now evident with him being appointed Head of Cricket for JSW. For Grandhi, Ganguly wasn’t the man to turn things around for DC. That’s when the formula was evolved whereby both corporate entities would take turns to run the franchise. For two years, it would be with GMR, and then JSW would take the reins for the next two. When GMR has the men’s team, JSW will have the women’s team and vice-versa.
So, what about the mega auction? While the press release says it will be done in sync, what we know is that of the eight people on the table, five will be from GMR and three from JSW. Jindal and Ganguly will both be there, as will Rao, Badani and Grandhi. That they will all work in sync is the plan, but in case there is a stalemate over a particular buy or a certain player, the chairman’s decision will be final. In other words, GMR will have a casting vote for the first two years.
Is this workable, and can DC make this most of this unique arrangement, which hasn’t really happened in IPL before? In my opinion, this is the result of a governance crisis and an attempt to salvage the situation. Will it work for Ganguly? Only time can tell.
Also Read: Power play at Delhi Capitals; Sourav Ganguly pushed to the fringes