Had Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) played under the leadership of former India skipper Sourav Ganguly in the Indian Premier League (IPL), they might have avoided the tag of tournament-laggards, feels teams young pacer Ashok Dinda.
"Dada [Ganguly] knows us [the Bengal cricketers] inside out. He knows what are our strengths and weaknesses. Our performance would have been better under his captaincy. He would have been successful in getting the best out of our players," Dinda said on his arrival in Kolkata on Friday.
Dinda arrived with his team-mates including Ganguly, Laxmi Ratan Shukla and Wriddhiman Saha from South Africa, where they finished their IPL campaign at the bottom of the eight-team standings.
Ganguly, however, declined to talk to the waiting media.
Under New Zealand's Brendon McCullum the Kolkata side had a disastrous campaign as the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan-owned side earned the dubious distinction of losing eight matches on the trot.
After failing to make the semi-finals, Knight Riders however, put up a resurgent performance towards the end to win their last two encounters and finished with three wins against their name.
Shukla, who ensured defending champions Rajasthan Royals' exit from the IPL by guiding Kolkata to a four-wicket victory in their last match, said it was a good experience to play the Twenty20 tournament away from home.
"We have to take the positives out. There were few bright spots like Brad Hodge and my form in batting. Dinda also did well with the ball. We have to count the positive aspects. There is a lot to improve upon and hopefully we will do better next time," said Shukla.
"It was just a bad phase and the soon we recover from it, the better for the side. I feel we lost our matches in the last five overs of the innings. We have to tighten up to make sure that it does not happen next time," Shukla added.
