Would have loved to have Virat Kohli in RPS: Sanjiv Goenka

The biggest news that came out of the Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) in February was the appointment of Steven Smith as captain. He replaced MS Dhoni, who had a poor season as a captain in 2016. Dhoni reportedly respected the decision and offered full support to the new skipper.

RPS had a forgettable year in 2016, where they lost 9 out of 14 games and finished 7th in the points table. They were never in contention for a spot in the Playoffs and ostensibly such a performance raises questions on the leadership. Dhoni, who is India’s most successful captain in history, led Supergiant in their debut season last year but couldn’t help arrest the slide of his team. The owner of the RPS franchise Sanjiv Goenka took a harsh call ahead of the 10th edition of the IPL. Dhoni was axed as captain, a decision which raised a lot of eyebrows.

Just 10 days ahead of the tournament, Goenka announced the name change of his franchise. Instead of Rising Pune Supergiants, they will now be called as Rising Pune Supergiant from now on. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph on Wednesday, the Chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group answered a few trending questions.

When asked if given an option, which player would he love to have in his franchise, he was diplomatic at first but then opened up, “I’m perfectly happy with the players we’ve got… But if you insist and I had the right to pick one, it would only be Virat… I’m a great fan of his leadership.”

Goenka is one of many fans the current Indian captain has got. Kohli has led India with distinction, especially in the Test format. He now has taken over as the captain of India in all three formats after Dhoni shocked everyone with his decision to step down in the early part of this year. Anybody, including Goenka, would love to have Kohli as their captain of their franchise.

The name change of his franchise was another question which Goenka answered candidly as he admitted to being superstitious. “(We dropped the ‘s’) Because of numerology. Two numerologists had told me about it last year itself, but I didn’t pay much attention then… One is in Calcutta, the other in Varanasi. “

Naturally, after languishing towards the bottom of the points table at the end of their campaign last year, the superstitious side of Goenka took charge and removed the ‘s’ from his franchise name ahead of this year’s IPL.

Another talking point about RPS was the relationship between Smith and Dhoni. Goenka was asked if the two players had a one-on-one after the captaincy switch to which he replied, “They’ve been in touch, yes, and were together in Pune in the build-up.”

It was a short reply to a controversial question. Smith, though, has mentioned that he will always share a good professional relationship with Dhoni, though he won’t seek too much advice from the former captain as it will eventually lead to confusion.

The Rising Pune Supergiant kick starts their campaign tonight against a Malinga-less Mumbai Indians at Pune. They need to start positively as they must have learned from last year’s failures.