Ganguly's final IPL year - Pune owner

Sourav Ganguly may give up the Pune Warriors captaincy after this season and take up a mentoring role in 2013, franchise owner Subroto Roy has said. Ganguly, 39, has been in indifferent form this season and his team is second last in the IPL.

Roy said Ganguly had originally been interested in a role as mentor this year as well, before changing his mind. "Sourav will be the mentor next season," Roy told news channel NDTV. "We rather pushed him to play in IPL 5 as he is such a fantastic captain."

Warriors have three matches remaining this season but are already out of the playoff race, having lost nine out of 13 matches. Roy suggested Ganguly, who has scored 261 runs at a sluggish strike-rate of 100.77 this year, would rest for the remainder of the season. "Sourav wants to give youngsters a chance in the last games," he said. Ganguly has led Warriors in all 13 of their matches this season.

Franchise sources, however, told ESPNcricinfo that Ganguly would not miss all three remaining matches, but might opt out of one or two of them. They said a final decision on Ganguly taking over as mentor of the franchise would only be taken after the season.