Kolkata, March 24: Kolkata Knight Riders team director John Buchanan met ‘beleaguered’ captain Sourav Ganguly at a city hotel on Tuesday to come clear on his views about the latter’s inclusion in the team. Sources close to the KKR team said Buchanan had a 20-minute discussion with Ganguly and explained to him the "reasons" for his comments last Sunday on the KKR captaincy issue.

The grapevine has it the meeting gave the southpaw an indication that he may only be "a part of the team in selected matches".

On Monday, when questioned again on the captaincy issue, the Queenslander mentioned the names of West Indies skipper Chris Gayle, Black Caps’ gloveman Brendon McCullum and Australian batsman Brad Hodge, who is not even a regular in the national team.

Things are believed to have gone awry between Ganguly and Buchanan when there was a clear difference of opinion between the two on the inclusion of Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar in the side.

Importantly, at a recent camp here at Eden Gardens, the former India skipper did not attend a single day ever since Buchanan’s arrival.

"Sourav didn’t like coaches to interfere in the selection of the final XI or for that matter, other matters like decisions after winning the toss and so on. Buchanan always used to voice his opinion in every department," a source close to the KKR team said.

The source added that Ganguly’s fitness had been an issue to the former Aussie coach since last year itself. "Australian coaches generally prefer players who are fitness freaks.

In fact, after watching KKR’s 14 matches last year, Buchanan wasn’t very pleased with Sourav’s level of fitness.

"And at this moment, Sourav is retired and hasn’t been a part of competitive cricket for quite some time."