Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Sourav Ganguly believes in giving freedom to players and is not a great supporter of too many team meetings.
"You have to plan ahead specially when you are captaining on the park. You have to think ahead, but I'm a believer of execution and I'm not a firm believer of too many team meetings and too many ideas," the former India skipper told reporters in Mumbai on the eve of KKR's Indian Premier League clash against defending champions Deccan Chargers.
"You have to let the player play to his strength. Everybody has his strength. They have been successful so far with the way they have played.
"I'm not a firm believer of trying to change them, (but only in) just letting them know the amount of runs we need on the board to win a cricket match, the amount of runs we need to chase and win a cricket match and let them do the best way they are capable of doing," the stylish left-hander said after KKR's practice session at MCA's BKC ground.
The Bengal stalwart, India's most successful captain in Test history, was not prepared to dwell on the first two years of IPL when KKR did precious little of note and was confident this time they would deliver the goods.
"I'm not too keen on talking about what's in the past. It's a very new set up for us at the KKR. We tried and got our team. (We) have done extra work in terms of preparations and players. Hopefully we will deliver this time," Ganguly said.
The Bengal stalwart said the atmosphere in the team was good and the players were enjoying themselves.
"It's all about delivering at the big stage. It's all about delivering in the middle for all teams in the world, all teams in the competition. It's the same for us. We have a good atmosphere in the team. We're enjoying ourselves and hopefully, as I said, we will deliver," he remarked.
Ganguly said the team would miss the services of West Indian Chris Gayle and New Zealander Brendon McCullum for some matches as they were busy with their national commitments but the team had other good international players to fill in.
"We have good players in (Brad) Hodge, (Owais) Shah, Angelo Mathews. Obviously we will miss McCullum and Gayle. But we will wait for them. Gayle should be here very shortly."
He pointed out all the other teams were facing the same handicap in the first week and things would improve later.
"Lots of the teams don't have their key players. It's going to happen in the first week of the tournament and hopefully things will settle down," he said.
Ganguly hoped his team would win most of the matches in the first week to gain the much-needed momentum in the race for the semi final spots.
There was a fitness concern over speedster Ajit Agarkar and it will be known tomorrow whether he can play, Ganguly said. "Yes, there's a fitness issue over Ajit. We will deal with it tomorrow," he said.
The former national skipper was full of praise for the role of Pakistan great Wasim Akram in working with his team's bowling department. Asked about the impact the ex-Pakistan captain had on his team he said, "Great impact".
"He's working with the bowlers. Our bowling department is very well looked after. Hopefully we can get some runs on the board," he said.
Elaborating he said, "We have lot of good quicks in our team who can actually go and play for India at some stage. Ishant (Sharma) is already playing for India. (Ashok) Dinda has played a game. He's in the reckoning.
"We got Varun Aaron. Once he's fit and once we get him on the park, he bowls (at) nearly 90 miles an hour. He's a bright prospect," he remarked.
Ganguly was non-committal about opening the innings, saying there were other contenders too.
"We will see. We have other contenders We will try and get the best combination on the park.
He said T20 was mostly about execution and hoped his team would do it well. "This game is all about execution, it's 10 per cent planning and 90 per cent execution and hopefully we will do that properly." PTI
