KKR co-owner Shah Rukh Khan once went through a 'divorce' with Sourav Ganguly during early IPL days: 'How right it is for Dada to have paid...'

Shah Rukh Khan is passionate about his team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and has been that way since he bought it in the Indian Premier League's (IPL) first season. KKR is now known to have won three IPL trophies over the years, however, there was a time when they were struggling so hard that the entire team has to be reshuffled. In trying to make KKR what it is today, there was a time when Shah Rukh Khan, KKR's co-owner, and Sourav Ganguly, the former captain of the team, went through a rough patch that SRK once said, was like a divorce.

KKR was the only team after the first three seasons of IPL that had not made it to the playoffs. Shah Rukh Khan and co-owner Jay Mehta then decided to hire CEO Venky Mysore to restructure the team who resolved to change all the players, including the team's captain and legendary Indian batsman Sourav Ganguly. 

Shah Rukh Khan, speaking about this period in a documentary - Living with KKR - said, "All these thoughts started coming in that maybe the format is not suiting the great players." Cricket commentator Gautam Bhattacharya also revealed how the dynamics between Shah Rukh Khan and Sourav Ganguly changed as KKR kept losing, leading the two to gradually part ways. 

"Shah Rukh and Sourav were similar characters – stormy, taking on the system, winning it on their own, very proud, self-made individuals. In the process, communication between them had come down to quite an extent, and towards the end of the tournament, Ganguly and Shah Rukh were no longer friends, let me put it this way," Gautam Bhattacharya said. 

In the next season, KKR did not retain Sourav Ganguly and rehashed the whole team. "If it’s not going to be Sourav leading KKR, then we will rehash the whole team. We were the only people who put the whole team back into the IPL pool. That was the only way we could show respect to the greatness and the beginnings that Sourav Ganguly gave us in KKR," Shah Rukh Khan said at the time. 

Shah Rukh Khan said that what he and Sourav Ganguly went through was like a divorce where things don't work out and people have to move on. 

"Sometimes it’s better to just sit down and say you know what, this is not working out. Not because you are not good, not because I am not good, it’s like a divorce. Sometimes you say sweetheart, I hope you are happy and have a happier life and so will I, let’s just move on," he said. 

Shah Rukh Khan further admitted that because of the problems at KKR, Sourav Ganguly paid the price. "How right it is for Sourav to have paid the price for the wrong that the whole system in KKR was, I don’t know," he said. 

KKR won its first IPL trophy in the fifth season in 2012, the second in 2014, and the third in 2024. 

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