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[Libran]

Mr Chappell should pack his bag and quietly f***-off. He has ruined our cricket enough,” is how one of the most senior officials connected with Indian cricket reacted to Greg Chappell’s decision not to seek a re-appointment as the coach of the Indian team.

For a man who commanded his younger brother Trevor to bowl underarm to win a close one-day game for Australia, Chappell’s decision to throw in the towel even before the final over came up was out of (the typically Aussie) character.

The BCCI had called for a two-day meeting to take stock of the situation after India’s early exit from the World Cup where Chappell was to answer most of the questions raised by a powerful review committee.

But then, well placed sources in the team, and more importantly the men in suits, said yesterday that Chappell had burnt his bridges beyond repair after indulging in needless rounds of shadow boxing with some of the senior players.
“He had poor man-management, had no PR skills and was an equally bad tactician. These are must-have qualities for a coach and Chappell did not possess any of them. I wonder how he was such a successful captain,” the top official said.

Citing an example, the Board member said, “He had a strange way of working which the players have reported time and again. The only time he would speak with the squad was on the eve of a test match during the team meeting. For the next five days he would not utter a word and keep to himself and not discuss any strategy with the boys. That is not how a coach is supposed to behave. A coach has to interact with the boys after every session. But if India ended up winning the game, he would proudly go and address the press.”

Some of the senior team members Mumbai Mirror spoke to endorsed the official’s view.

“Greg failed in man-management. He just could not understand the Indian psyche. He could not motivate players on their bad days,” a member of the Indian think-tank said. But he insisted, “No one can question the hard work and commitment he put in.”

We couldn’t agree more with that. But Chappell stretched his hard work and commitment so far that he became a control freak.

 
"During a meeting with a BCCI vice-president after the disastrous tour of South Africa, he wanted the Board to sack all the senior players and build a young team with the likes of Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik. The top official told him that it wasn't possible and the only solution was to drop them one at a time and groom a youngster in the dropped senior's place. If he had his way, even Tendulkar would have been dropped a while ago.

"He was also strictly told that his job was to get the best out of the players he was given. He didn't take the suggestion well and kept bickering," the source said.

Another senior player, who Chappell never liked, said that his quitting would be a blessing in disguise for Indian cricket. "It wasn't good (about Chappell's reign). On the eve of the match, he only spoke about the problems in the team. All his positivity had gone for a toss in the last few months.

"His quitting is indeed a blessing in disguise. Indian cricket aur niche nahin ja sakti kyonki ab to BCCI ki akhe khulegi, they will give attention to domestic cricket and may think of cutting few unnecessary off-shore games."

[keep-it-cool]

If he had his way, even Tendulkar would have been dropped a while ago.

I sincerely wish he had had his way a while ago ... in test matches

Indian cricket aur niche nahin ja sakti kyonki ab to BCCI ki akhe khulegi, they will give attention to domestic cricket and may think of cutting few unnecessary off-shore games."

oh yeah, that's the only thing needed. batting and bowling form will just return like that ... after all, there is a bangladesh series coming up

[keep-it-cool]

Meanwhile, the biggest cricketer .. THE ONE .. has gone on record that he never had any differences of opinion with the coach.

But, then that does not count for much!

[suraj]

“Greg failed in man-management. He just could not understand the Indian psyche. He could not motivate players on their bad days,” a member of the Indian think-tank said. But he insisted, “No one can question the hard work and commitment he put in.”

This is the crux of the reason why GC failed as a coach. I have no disagreement with his ideas at all- infact they were revolutionary and are neccessary for rebuilding a team but these aspects are essential for the job and he completely failed at these

[Blwe_torch]

Ideas are all very fine. Everyone posseses lofty ideas nowadays. It is the execution, which is more important. I believe, JW had similar ideas and executed them much better.
Chappel's is a colossal failure. It is like all talk and no output............very very bad implementation. Tell you what, any paanwala worth his supari in Calcutta or any dhabawala worth his phulka in Patiala, can articulate atleast this much abt cricket, no less. And the best is...all the wisdom comes for free!~

[dextrous]

Ideas are all very fine. Everyone posseses lofty ideas nowadays. It is the execution, which is more important. I believe, JW had similar ideas and executed them much better.
Chappel's is a colossal failure. It is like all talk and no output............very very bad implementation. Tell you what, any paanwala worth his supari in Calcutta or any dhabawala worth his phulka in Patiala, can articulate atleast this much abt cricket, no less. And the best is...all the wisdom comes for free!~

Exactly. There's nothing god damn revolutionary about GC's ideas. People keep going on about ideas. What are his ideas, exactly? Youth, change of system, etc.? Well, youth can come if there's talent. Also, NOT EVEN Australia, thrusts u-21 players like GC suggests. Change of system? Um, aren't all Indians for that? I mean, BCCI an an organization itself is a process that nobody understands. All GC wanted to do was use BCCI for his own ends, as does everyone else. Where's the damn revolutionary idea?

Most coaches don't "come up" with revolutionary ideas. Some come along once in a while, like Bob Woolmer (god rest his soul) that change the game. Others like Whatmore can inspire minnows to new heights (SL and now B'desh)--but as such most coaches come and go and are great only because of how they handle the resources available. Sick of hearing about GC's so-called ideas.

[Blwe_torch]

I remember Simpson as the most outstanding coach, who resurrected his team with a novel approach. I wish India had his services full-time. He is a rare gem. I am sure Whatmore too will be quite good.

[dextrous]

I remember Simpson as the most outstanding coach, who resurrected his team with a novel approach. I wish India had his services full-time. He is a rare gem. I am sure Whatmore too will be quite good.

Simpson must be getting up there in age?

[Cernunnos]

Nobody would have this much rancour if Chappell, inspite of his jargonistic methods, was an honest broker. It's not just about methods being tried and failing. Chappell's poor results are the least of his follies.

It's the petty politicking, the smearing of players who have performed with distinction, the environment of tension which he created in the dressing room, etc. which most people find deplorable.

[pieterSAN]

I remember Simpson as the most outstanding coach, who resurrected his team with a novel approach. I wish India had his services full-time. He is a rare gem. I am sure Whatmore too will be quite good.

Simpson must be getting up there in age?

True....I did mention him as my first choice if it was not GC in another thread but really I think the captain should be allowed to choose someone he is comfortable with.

[dextrous]

I remember Simpson as the most outstanding coach, who resurrected his team with a novel approach. I wish India had his services full-time. He is a rare gem. I am sure Whatmore too will be quite good.

Simpson must be getting up there in age?

True....I did mention him as my first choice if it was not GC in another thread but really I think the captain should be allowed to choose someone he is comfortable with.

sir, that would require us to have a captain 

[abhinav]

Came across this article Indian Express:

Sachin down, Chappell out
Ajay S ShankarPosted online: Thursday, April 05, 2007 at 0000 hrs
Others may call him Great Divider, he would say: caught between defiant fading stars & raw youngsters
NEW DELHI, APRIL 4: Most leaks coming from BCCI itself for whatever reasons. I will finish my report Thursday night, present it Friday and wait for the umpire’s decision.
— Regards, Greg


In the end, Greg Chappell didn’t wait for the umpire’s decision. One day after he sent this email to The Indian Express, the man who coached and cajoled Indian cricket for 22 months was getting ready to pack his bags, disgusted with the officials who gave him the job, dumped by the players who never let him do it the way he wanted.

Maybe, it was Sachin Tendulkar’s open defiance that finally did it. Maybe, it was the mind-numbing pressure during India’s World Cup tailspin, when he feared that “Sachin and Sourav were circling over Indian cricket (with Rahul on his knees) waiting for the captaincy”. Maybe, it was a gentle nudge from the top bosses of the BCCI.

But Chappell’s decision was actually the climax of a script gone horribly wrong over the last 10 months, from the time he confessed during India’s last tour of the West Indies in May-June 2006 that, “with this team, we will never win the World Cup.”

That was also the time when the Chappellway had begun to face the first signs of resistance from a section of the players who did not quite relish the coach’s attempts at total control, who felt left out of the loop as the coach began to attempt an ambitious overhaul of the team, the “process” of fast-tracking youngsters into the final XI.

That was also the time when Chappell, aware of the rumblings within, started seeing conspiracies all around, confiding that players like Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag were being controlled from outside by his “nemesis,” the man who got him to India in the first place, Sourav Ganguly.

That was also the time when the Indian dressing room first started frosting over. It was a bizarre situation that left chartered accountant Ravi Savant, who managed that team, quite bewildered: “I did not see a single one of them, except maybe Dravid, walk up to him with a doubt or for a discussion.

And when he spoke in the dressing room, either someone would be looking away, or talking among themselves or packing their kit bags.”

This, looking back, was the start of the great divide - Chappell vs Sehwag and Harbhajan, then Chappell vs Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan, and of course, the big one that started it all, Chappell vs Ganguly.

It was a divide that widened when India’s famous batsmen started flopping again and again, when Chappell’s youngsters — Suresh Raina, RP Singh — failed to grab their chances, when the sceptical Dilip Vengsarkar took over as chief selector from Chappellway fan Kiran More with just six months to go for the World Cup.

It was a divide that finally ended with that phone call this afternoon to BCCI president Sharad Pawar. And this line: “Today I informed the President of the BCCI that I would not seek an extension to my contract to coach the Indian cricket team for family and personal reasons.”

So how will Team India remember the Australian legend’s 22 months with Indian cricket? Rahul Dravid would call him the “greatest cricketing brain around”, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel and Irfan Pathan would look back at man who had backed them all the way, the “magarmach”, the crocodile with a “steel mind” who never wavered under pressure.

But what the rest of India’s World Cup 15 thought of him finally spelt the end of Chappell. For them, including Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly,

Chappell was a divisive force, who ignored the widening rift within the team, who badmouthed them in private, who refused to own up for the team’s failures, who leaked stories about them.

Chappell would, of course, beg to differ. He would say that he was caught between a defiant group of fading stars and a raw bunch of youngsters who were not really ready to take over. He would also list out a string of disappointments.

During the Sri Lankan tour of August, he thought he had convinced Sehwag to drop down in the middle order but later found that the opener had backtracked; during the South Africa tour this year, he let loose a private tirade against Ganguly only to find that the Bengal left-hander had been named to join the squad for the Tests; during the World Cup, he felt that the seniors were not giving their 100 per cent for the team only to find his worse fears come true against Bangladesh.

And now this: with a few days to go for the BCCI’s much-hyped performance review meeting, a rash of source-based reports break out, saying Chappell has pinned all the blame for India’s disaster on the senior players, even calling them a “mafia,”. Two days later, Tendulkar tells the world he is hurt that the coach questioned his attitude.

“I am currently out of the office for some time. Don’t expect to get a reply any time soon. If you are from the media it is unlikely that I will have time to do any interviews or chats in the foreseeable future. Thank you to all of you for your patience and persistence over the past 22 months and, for a change, I will enjoy reading your articles or watching your channels with a dispassionate view,” wrote Chappell this afternoon.

Then, in a press release, he rubbed it in: “I am grateful to the players with whom I have worked in this time for the challenges that they presented me with and which I tried to meet in a professional, methodical and interesting way in the interests of the team and the individual.”

Yes, Tendulkar may have finally got rid of the one man who was determined to cut his sagging career short by at least a couple of years. Yes, Ganguly may have had the last laugh. But as Dravid confided last week, if we revisit Chappell’s ideas once the noise is all over, we might find that he did have a point or two, after all.

[Libran]

Came across this article Indian Express:

Sachin down, Chappell out
Ajay S ShankarPosted online: Thursday, April 05, 2007 at 0000 hrs
Others may call him Great Divider, he would say: caught between defiant fading stars & raw youngsters
NEW DELHI, APRIL 4: Most leaks coming from BCCI itself for whatever reasons. I will finish my report Thursday night, present it Friday and wait for the umpire’s decision.
— Regards, Greg


In the end, Greg Chappell didn’t wait for the umpire’s decision. One day after he sent this email to The Indian Express, the man who coached and cajoled Indian cricket for 22 months was getting ready to pack his bags, disgusted with the officials who gave him the job, dumped by the players who never let him do it the way he wanted.

Maybe, it was Sachin Tendulkar’s open defiance that finally did it. Maybe, it was the mind-numbing pressure during India’s World Cup tailspin, when he feared that “Sachin and Sourav were circling over Indian cricket (with Rahul on his knees) waiting for the captaincy”. Maybe, it was a gentle nudge from the top bosses of the BCCI.

But Chappell’s decision was actually the climax of a script gone horribly wrong over the last 10 months, from the time he confessed during India’s last tour of the West Indies in May-June 2006 that, “with this team, we will never win the World Cup.”

That was also the time when the Chappellway had begun to face the first signs of resistance from a section of the players who did not quite relish the coach’s attempts at total control, who felt left out of the loop as the coach began to attempt an ambitious overhaul of the team, the “process” of fast-tracking youngsters into the final XI.

That was also the time when Chappell, aware of the rumblings within, started seeing conspiracies all around, confiding that players like Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag were being controlled from outside by his “nemesis,” the man who got him to India in the first place, Sourav Ganguly.

That was also the time when the Indian dressing room first started frosting over. It was a bizarre situation that left chartered accountant Ravi Savant, who managed that team, quite bewildered: “I did not see a single one of them, except maybe Dravid, walk up to him with a doubt or for a discussion.

And when he spoke in the dressing room, either someone would be looking away, or talking among themselves or packing their kit bags.”

This, looking back, was the start of the great divide - Chappell vs Sehwag and Harbhajan, then Chappell vs Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan, and of course, the big one that started it all, Chappell vs Ganguly.

It was a divide that widened when India’s famous batsmen started flopping again and again, when Chappell’s youngsters — Suresh Raina, RP Singh — failed to grab their chances, when the sceptical Dilip Vengsarkar took over as chief selector from Chappellway fan Kiran More with just six months to go for the World Cup.

It was a divide that finally ended with that phone call this afternoon to BCCI president Sharad Pawar. And this line: “Today I informed the President of the BCCI that I would not seek an extension to my contract to coach the Indian cricket team for family and personal reasons.”

So how will Team India remember the Australian legend’s 22 months with Indian cricket? Rahul Dravid would call him the “greatest cricketing brain around”, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel and Irfan Pathan would look back at man who had backed them all the way, the “magarmach”, the crocodile with a “steel mind” who never wavered under pressure.

But what the rest of India’s World Cup 15 thought of him finally spelt the end of Chappell. For them, including Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly,

Chappell was a divisive force, who ignored the widening rift within the team, who badmouthed them in private, who refused to own up for the team’s failures, who leaked stories about them.

Chappell would, of course, beg to differ. He would say that he was caught between a defiant group of fading stars and a raw bunch of youngsters who were not really ready to take over. He would also list out a string of disappointments.

During the Sri Lankan tour of August, he thought he had convinced Sehwag to drop down in the middle order but later found that the opener had backtracked; during the South Africa tour this year, he let loose a private tirade against Ganguly only to find that the Bengal left-hander had been named to join the squad for the Tests; during the World Cup, he felt that the seniors were not giving their 100 per cent for the team only to find his worse fears come true against Bangladesh.

And now this: with a few days to go for the BCCI’s much-hyped performance review meeting, a rash of source-based reports break out, saying Chappell has pinned all the blame for India’s disaster on the senior players, even calling them a “mafia,”. Two days later, Tendulkar tells the world he is hurt that the coach questioned his attitude.

“I am currently out of the office for some time. Don’t expect to get a reply any time soon. If you are from the media it is unlikely that I will have time to do any interviews or chats in the foreseeable future. Thank you to all of you for your patience and persistence over the past 22 months and, for a change, I will enjoy reading your articles or watching your channels with a dispassionate view,” wrote Chappell this afternoon.

Then, in a press release, he rubbed it in: “I am grateful to the players with whom I have worked in this time for the challenges that they presented me with and which I tried to meet in a professional, methodical and interesting way in the interests of the team and the individual.”

Yes, Tendulkar may have finally got rid of the one man who was determined to cut his sagging career short by at least a couple of years. Yes, Ganguly may have had the last laugh. But as Dravid confided last week, if we revisit Chappell’s ideas once the noise is all over, we might find that he did have a point or two, after all.

What few things we can pick up ... we do not know,

The fact that gets reiterated time and again is that this guy seems to have some kind of an imbalance...which should have been identified much earlier. If in May-June 2006 he had decided that this team cannot win the WC, why did he talk in praise of Kiran More who was at the helm till as late as October 2006..?? Which Coach will talk ill of his own team ( and his nemeis was not even around in WI)

And the tirade against SG in SA...even before he was selected to the Test team....

Holy cow...wonder how this team survived even till the WC...

Thank our lucky stars ...he is off...it is late...he should have gone immediately after SA...The one test victory gave him a life line ...and he screwed Indian cricket ...one big f*****g ride he has taken everybody for

[Libran]

If GC had said that "This team cannot win the WC" in WI  way back in Apr-May 2006...it was coming just after that so often touted 17 wins in a row and a 6-1 whipping of SL...WHAT KIND OF A COACH WAS HE ??

So, can the Chappelites now put their best foot forward and defend the Coach...or atleast tell the world why the 6-1 SL victory and the Pak ODI victories are still worthy of discussion

[Libran]

What happened?? Why is someone not validating the Coach's words...