Referring to a recent interview of Gautam Gambhir in which he had said Shah Rukh Khan had told him he would be given a free hand as the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) 2011, BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly said this was the exact request he had made to the KKR co-owner when he had been captain.

During a chat with Gautam Bhatacharjee on his YouTube channel, Ganguly said, “I was seeing an interview where Gautam Gambhir said Shah Rukh Khan had told him in the fourth year ‘This is your team, I will not interfere.’ That’s what I told him in the first year. Leave it to me. It didn’t happen. Look at CSK, MS Dhoni runs it. In Mumbai also, no one goes up to Rohit Sharma and tells him to select certain players.”

Ganguly led the KKR in the inaugural edition of the IPL and in 2010 as well, but he was not retained by his home franchise after the 2010 season.

ALSO READ: Sourav Ganguly Don’t Feel Domestic Cricket Will Be Played Soon

When asked about his removal from captaincy in the 2009 season, Ganguly said, “Thought process was the issue there. The coach (John Buchanan) believed we needed four captains. So it was just a difference of opinion, he thought, ‘Let me have 4 captains, then I can run it my way.’”

Buchanan was sacked as the coach after the 2009 season, and then with Ganguly was reappointed as the captain for another season, before he was released and KKR had appointed Gambhir as the captain.

Describing the same, Sourav Ganguly further elaborated, “The problems (with Buchanan) started towards the end of the first season. The problem was not me, the problem was the system of having one captain. We had Brendon Mccullum, we had x, we had a bowling captain, and i don’t know captain for what else.”

ALSO READ: Subramaniam Badrinath Points The Importance Of MS Dhoni’s Captaincy

Aakash Chopra, who played for KKR in the initial years, said in a recent interview that Buchanan didn’t want Ganguly as captain because of a difference in temperament.