Leadership, Kolkata's wafer-thin mint

The multiple-captains saga has hung around the otherwise fragrant Kolkata Knight Riders like a bad smell ever since their coach, John Buchanan, mooted the theory at a press conference last month next while sitting next to a decidedly unimpressed Sourav Ganguly. Everyone had an opinion, which is why Shah Rukh Khan - a man never knowingly ruffled - suggested earlier this week that, contrary to speculation, he would be captain. After everything that had happened, you couldn't rule it out.

On Friday, the Kolkata PR machine - and it is the most impressive of the eight franchises out here - rolled into action, announcing that Brendon McCullum, the combative Kiwi, would be the one and only leader, but with "the full support of the team". To prevent a complete strop from certain members of that team, a crucial rider in the press release added the words: "including the Knight Rider's more senior members, such as Sourav Ganguly, Brad Hodge, Chris Gayle and Matthew Mott". Today, as Kolkata embarked on their first game of this year's IPL under the Newlands lights, breaths were duly held.

The problem with issues flogged to within an inch of their relevance by a near-rabid media is that they quickly lose whatever sting they previously possessed once it becomes clear that the story may have been - how shall we put it? - blown out of all proportion. And while Kolkata were slipping to 101 all out (McCullum 1, Gayle 10, Ganguly 1) leaders appeared thin on the ground.

But the real test would come when Kolkata were in the field. Buchanan had tried all along to point out that all he really wanted was for his senior players to share the responsibility. This, predictably enough, was seized upon as a slight to Ganguly, and there are few phenomena in cricket that produce such feverish reporting as a slight to Ganguly. In reality, it was nothing of the sort.

And so McCullum, after a cursory huddle and pep-talk, did what any half-decent captain would do and arranged his field according to the assets available to him. Gayle, never the most talkative anyway, was positioned at slip, where he grazes nonchalantly for West Indies. The athletic Hodge was dispatched to the covers, while Ganguly - who has always regarded fielding as cricket at its most inconvenient - was kept out of harm's way at mid-on.

At one point Ganguly discussed a field placing with Ajit Agarkar. At another, the lesser-known Bengali Laxmi Shukla appeared to be offering advice to his captain. McCullum chivvied and chirped, as wicketkeepers do anyway, and waved Murali Kartik a touch squarer at short extra cover. No matter: Rohit Sharma went down the ground instead and lifted Agarkar for six. During the time-out, which the Deccan Chargers took at 69 for 2 - needing only 33 to win in 10 overs - the sermons were delivered by the assistant coach Mott and McCullum.

But the truth is that captains only have a limited say in what happens in Twenty20 cricket. Richie Benaud's old maxim about skippers needing 90% luck and 10% skill probably shift towards a 95-5 split in the game's speediest format. What constitutes that 5% is, for the moment, most people's guess. A bowling change here, perhaps a well-placed sledge there. Above all, the appearance of authority.

Ganguly had a word with McCullum at the end, but by then it was far too late anyway. He may just as well have been pointing out that captaincy is over-rated in any case. As Kolkata slunk to an eight-wicket defeat with a whopping 41 balls to spare, it may have been the only piece of advice worth imparting.