SRK to critics: With due respect, mind your business

SRK to critics: With due respect, mind your business

K. KUMARASWAMY

Khan, Gavaskar Mumbai, April 5: Shah Rukh Khan today reminded Sunil Gavaskar "of an era of new gameplay" and told critics to "buy your own team and run it the way you want" if they had a problem with the way Kolkata Knight Riders was being managed. The team owner's withering advice came on a day Gavaskar's syndicated column, ripping into KKR manager John Buchanan, appeared in newspapers, including The Telegraph. "Main ne paisa kharch kiya yaar, bahut passion hai…. If you have a problem, you can buy your own (team) and run it the way you want," Shah Rukh told a promotional event this evening. Suggesting Buchanan's multiple-skipper theory did not deserve comment, Gavaskar had written that the team manager "has wangled for his Queensland pals and former teammates lucrative jobs with the franchise…. The owners, poor souls, probably have little idea of how they are being milked". Shah Rukh, whose assertion today reflected his strong backing for Buchanan, put on record his respect for Gavaskar but pointed out that times had changed and new ideas should be experimented with. "I love Gavaskar, I respect him. I grew up watching him, Vishy (G.R. Vishwanath) and Kapil (Dev) play. I don't doubt his cricketing knowledge which is billion times more than mine. With due respect to him, this is an era of new gameplay, new format, new methodology. He didn't play T20 but his knowledge is still vast enough to make a comment," Shah Rukh said. The actor then referred to the derision that had greeted one-day cricket when the format made its debut. "ODI cricket was called pyjama cricket. We can't look down on anything. All I am saying is that let's try new things and please give it breathing space. We take our team and coach seriously, and try and allow them to decide on things the way they want." The words will carry significance for Sourav Ganguly, too, who captained the team in the inaugural edition of the IPL last year and has made clear his annoyance at the new plan. Shah Rukh had said last week a call on the issue would be taken before the first game, hinting at a rethink but not committing anything. Today, he said the multi-captain concept "has been misinterpreted". "Mohali also had followed this last year: players like Kumar Sangakkara were given charge of various aspects of the game. But it was not said as such. "Let us see how it works. There is no harm in giving it a chance to fail. We will try it out in the practice games. If it doesn't succeed, we can always go back to the traditional method."

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090406/jsp/frontpage/story_10780773.jsp