SRK is a brand treating KKR as its subsidiary

Kolkata Knight Riders being at the bottom of the table in the ongoing Indian Premier League may hurt the KKR fans but to a cricket enthusiast it is not surprising. The on field performance of the team has truly been disappointing but Knight Riders seems to have lost the plot with the team selection. They are left with limited resources in their present squad and are not expected to go too far ahead in the tournament.

John Buchanan and his team of experts messed up with the selection of players right in the first season. They got overboard with getting big international names such as Ricky Ponting, Shoaib Akhtar, Brendon McCullum and Chris Gayle overlooking the fact that only four international players can be accommodated in the playing eleven. This made sure that although squad looked formidable on paper the playing eleven was a vulnerable one.

Surprisingly IPL must have sounded like International Premier League to the KKR. Otherwise what logic can go behind having only one Indian star Ishant Sharma with all the other Indian players not even having a place in the Indian squad. Why could not manage to get any other players from among the 20-22 India regulars? They even lost Bengal's most promising batsman Manoj Tiwari to the Delhi Daredevils.

Another mess up that the Kolkata Knight Riders did was select a top heavy squad. The batting stars that the Knight Riders have in their squad (Brendon McCullum, Sourav Ganguly, Ricky Ponting and Chris Gayle) bat at 1,2 and 3 conventionally. This leaves the middle order and the lower middle order in the hands of players like Aksah Chopra, Sanjay Bangar where as other teams had the likes of Yusuf Pathan, MS Dhoni and Abhishek Nayar.

One foolishness could be termed as mistake but twice it becomes stupidity. What made them buy Bangladeshi pacer Moshrafe Mortaza for a whopping Rs 3 Crores when he chilling in the dug out. Couldn't they have got some better player from the India U-19 squad for may be one-tenth the price. Of course Shahrukh had more of Bollywood and Television interest in Bangladesh behind grabbing Mortaza. SRK is himself a brand and treating KKR as its subsidiary.

If all this was not enough the John Buchanan came with the four captain theory and sowed the last seeds of defeat. Brendon McCullum who has turned out to be a one innings wonder as far as IPL is concerned was given the captaincy ahead of Ganguly and Gayle both of whom have experience. The inexperience has showed in his decisions in the two close encounters the team had. The results are here for all to see.

IPL Season 2 is most likely over for the Kolkata Knight Riders unless a miracle happens which is least expected with the present team combination. Hopefully cricketing logic will drive the team in the next season and not just marketing and brand building exercise. 'Go Desi' and grab some good Indian talent that's the logic behind doing well in the IPL. More importantly Shahrukh should not treat this team as a brand extension of his own name.