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Dravid lacked courage to revolt & Chappel being in Oz camp hardly matters: Ganguly

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
Dravid lacked courage to revolt & Chappel being in Oz camp hardly matters: Ganguly

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly feels that Greg Chappell's presence in the Australian dressing room trying to plot the downfall of Indian batsmen, won't be of much benefit to the home team.

A couple of days back, a report in the Daily Telegraph stated that former India coach Chappell has been invited by current coach Mickey Arthur to address Aussie players on how to tackle champion batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

"Chappell will address the Australian squad for the first Test next week and he is the one man with the knowledge to demystify the champion (Tendulkar) Australia never feel they have got to the bottom of," the report said.

"To Australian bowlers, Tendulkar has been the master they have never mastered. His record against Australia in Tests - he averages 60.6 with 11 centuries in 31 Tests - makes him the greatest Aussie basher of his generation," it further stated.

According to Ganguly, with whom Chappell shared a tumultous captain-coach relationship, the latter's presence in Australia's support staff unit during their tour of India, back in 2008 wasn't of much help.

"If you look back at 2008 series which happened to be my last, Chappell was present in Australian team's support staff. Yet we won the series 2-0. Therefore, I don't think his presence would make any difference this time also," Ganguly told a news channel.

Ganguly was also scathing in his comments about how Chappell-the coach operated.

"He came with some personal vendetta and also lacked foresight. He didn't want a settled dressing room. He made mistake after mistake but the then captain Rahul Dravid never had the guts to stop him (Chappell) from his wrongdoing."

Chappell in his recently published autobiography had stated that Ganguly wanted him to be "grateful" for getting him the India coach's job.

"He expected I would be so grateful to him for getting me the job, that I'd become his henchman in his battle to remain captain. I, on the other hand, took on a job with the primary responsibility to Indian cricket and the Indian people," Chappell says in the book 'Fierce Focus'.

Ganguly on his part said that it was his "mistake" to get Chappell the coach's job.

"He was against Tendulkar, Laxman, Zaheer, Harbhajan and all of them have proved to be world class players. They are still performing for their country even now," Ganguly said.

Asked about whether BCCI could have acted more wisely, Ganguly replied, "At that point of time, BCCI was having a change of guard. So there wasn't much they could have done about it."

Another former India captain Kapil Dev feels that Chappell's Australian ways of dealing with situation wasn't in sync with the Indian culture.

"In India, we don't readily shut the door on anyone. There should be a certain degree of respect associated with the manner in which one handles the case of senior players. Look at Gary Kirsten, he did a fabulous job with the Indian team," Kapil stated.

Rahul Dravid never had the guts to stop Chappell : Sourav Ganguly

Greg?s presence in Oz camp hardly matters: Ganguly - Hindustan Times
 
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smash84

The Tiger King
I thought he would shed more light on his relationship with Dravid and why he felt this way
 

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
AWTA, though he was a dick himself for a while too.

Dravid was too subservient to Chappell, when he had pissed almost everyone else off. Has always been one of the quieter, diplomatic types and for a period the feeling was that he had become a rubber stamp for Chappell as Captain.
 

weldone

Hall of Fame Member
At the end of the day it comes down to 3 hard cold facts - Ganguly was a good captain, Dravid was a bad captain, and Chappell was a bad manager. It's more important to know whose leadership was better for the team than to know who was the bigger dick. That's what really matters in the end. And Ganguly wins in straight sets on that front.
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
When it was all panning out I was firmly in Chappell-Dravid camp. Now it seems more like Chappell had a pretty bad influence on the team. Though this has nothing to do with Dada's sacking. He was quite **** for a long time and it was the right thing to do.
 
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ganeshran

International Debutant
The only good thing that Chapell did was getting more youngsters in the side. Overall, he was a pathetic coach. Created way too many divisions in the team, tried some idiotic experiments that failed miserably. Kirsten and John Wright were far better coaches and achieved better results
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
The past is the past. Like Ankit I was supportive of the Chappell/Dravid alliance at the time and it was proved to be wrong. But that whole fiasco led us to Dhoni's era, and that is only a good thing.
 

smash84

The Tiger King
The only good thing that Chapell did was getting more youngsters in the side. Overall, he was a pathetic coach. Created way too many divisions in the team, tried some idiotic experiments that failed miserably. Kirsten and John Wright were far better coaches and achieved better results
awta

Back in the day when all the drama was unfolding I thought Chappell was looking for attention
 

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
That potshot at Dravid was needless. At the very least, Dravid was willing to adapt, unlike Ganguly. Dravid experimented a lot even after Chappellway ended. Ganguly was so stubborn, that when he could be the next best multirole player after Kapil and Prabhakar, he just gave up bowling altogether. Dravid did everything he could behind the stumps, opening the batting, and everything thrown at him. Ganguly's comment may suggest a strained relationship with Dravid, that caused many run-outs between them.

Chappellway did a few things wrong. But that wasn't the worst thing to happen to the team. The cricket setup declared war on Chappell, and that wrecked it totally. Chappell, at the very least, was practical and adaptive. But the same can't be said of this retrograde, obsolete, stubborn entity that is the BCCI and their staff. They were wrong then, and are wrong even now.
 

weldone

Hall of Fame Member
Arjun, you are mixing things. We are talking about leadership here. We are not judging the adaptability of different players. So, how much Ganguly bowled or how many times Dravid opened the innings is immaterial. As I have said before, the only thing tht metters here is that Ganguly was a good innovative captain, and a good leader of men. Dravid had zero qualities of a captain, and Chappell has always had zero man-management skills. End of.
 
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Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Dravid having 0 qualities is incredibly harsh. The guy won us a series in England.
 

weldone

Hall of Fame Member
Dravid having 0 qualities is incredibly harsh.
I agree. That was an extreme word used by me. It's like saying that Yuvraj Singh has 0 qualities as a batsman in the longer version. That's not necessarily true (because if he has 0 qualities, then Boycott's mother would have -ve qualities, which is hard to define theoretically).
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Dravid having 0 qualities is incredibly harsh. The guy won us a series in England.
The treatment of Dravid was a disgrace - backbone of the Indian batting for the better part of a decade, wins a series in England as captain but is then forced out (let's call it for what it was) because a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar lesser cricketer in Ganguly couldnt accept that he wasnt good enough anymore.

ChappellG's major crime as Indian coach was to deliver the bad news to Ganguly that he was no longer worth his place in the side
 

Viscount Tom

International Debutant
Shock of the day Ganguly's latest article is hardly pro-Chappell. Him and Chappell were like KP and Moores it just wasn't going to work.

Bit harsh on Dravid mind I mean lets be fair Ganguly was hardly Mike Brearley in captaincy terms and its not like India were overwhelmed by potential captains at the time.
 

stuw

Cricket Spectator
Arjun, you are mixing things. We are talking about leadership here. We are not judging the adaptability of different players. So, how much Ganguly bowled or how many times Dravid opened the innings is immaterial. As I have said before, the only thing tht metters here is that Ganguly was a good innovative captain, and a good leader of men. Dravid had zero qualities of a captain, and Chappell has always had zero man-management skills. End of.
Please tell me the number of overseas test series that ganguly won as a captain excluding the minnows-hardly any.Dravid in his short tenure won away series vs engalnd,westindies,pakistan and india's first every test win in southafrica. Ganguly is way overrated as a captain and din't deserve to be in team for as long as he did.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Chappell is Mad & Dravid Lacked Courage To Revolt - Sourav Ganguly - YouTube

For those who can understand Hindi. The actual comment by Sourav.

I don't think he is taking a potshot @ Dravid. From what I understood, Sourav was trying to say that

"...Dravid is a kind of human who likes everything to be good, he knew what was happening was wrong...but he did not have the courage to revolt to say that it was wrong....especially after what happened to me in Zimbabwe and the furor it caused..any captain would want things to happen peacfully, would want to play cricket peacefully..which is the right thing to do..."

Again..Perhaps wrong choice of one word "Dum (Courage/guts)..but overall I didn't think he was taking potshot at Dravid. He said what Dravid did was the right thing to do for a captain.
 

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