Greg Chappell recounts how his equation with Sourav Ganguly soured his Indian dream
Greg Chappell, recalling his time as India coach, stated that it was due to Sourav Ganguly that he bought the put up and that he left as a result of the resistance throughout the group bought an excessive amount of after Ganguly returned to the group.
Speaking on the Cricket Life Stories podcast, Chappell stated: “Ganguly was the one who approached me about coaching India. I had other approaches but I decided that since John Buchanan was coaching Australia… I would love to coach the most populous, fanatical cricket country in the world, and that opportunity came about because Sourav, who was the captain, made sure that I did.”
“The two years in India were challenging on every front. The expectations were ridiculous. Some of the issues were around Sourav being captain. He didn’t particularly want to work hard. He didn’t want to improve his cricket. He just wanted to be in the team as captain, so that he could control things,” Chappell stated.
Chappell then spoke about how he went about his job as India coach, saying that he needed to vary some cultures and methods of considering throughout the group. He stated the Indian group had a profitable run underneath Rahul Dravid for a couple of 12 months earlier than issues started to collapse.
READ | Dravid knew what was taking place however couldn’t management Chappell: Sourav Ganguly
He stated, “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. 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,” Chappell stated.