Controversial coach Greg Chappell had a short but eventful tenure with the Indian cricket team. From Sourav Ganguly being sacked as captain to Team India’s humiliating group-stage exit from 2007 ODI World Cup, Chappell’s era was filled with controversies. The Australian cricket great has now shared another controversy-stirring anecdote pertaining to Rahul Dravid’s captaincy tenure.
After Ganguly was sacked as captain, Dravid was put in charge of the team. It was Dravid under whose captaincy the Indian team went into the World Cup but couldn’t go beyond the group stage.
Chappell, in the Cricket Life Stories Podcast, reflected on Dravid’s captaincy tenure saying the India cricket great had the vision to make the team best in the world but other seniors were not on board with his ideas.
“Dravid was really invested in India becoming the best team in the world. Sadly, not everyone in the team had the same feeling. They would rather concentrate on being in the team. There was some resistance from some of the senior players because some of them were coming to the end of their careers,” Chappell said.
Ganguly, who arguably had the most torrid time of his career under Chappell, was even dropped from the India squad but made his return before eventually calling time on his career in 2008. Chappell said that the resistance in the team led to Ganguly’s return and the case with the other senior players was the same, no one wanted to change but didn’t want to sit out either.
“When Sourav got dropped from the team, we had a lot of attention from the players, because they realized if he can go, anyone can go. We had a great 12 months, but then the resistance got too much, Ganguly came back into the team.
“The message from the players was loud and clear – ‘We don’t want change.’ Even though the board offered me a new contract, I decided that I did not need that kind of stress,” he added.
Dravid was in charge of the Indian team in 25 Tests and 79 ODIs. winning 50 matches in total.
