Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly’s infamous feud with head coach Greg Chappell acquired centre-stage of Indian cricket after the latter’s internal mail to BCCI was leaked in the public forum. The letter contained a scathing critique of Ganguly’s performance both as a batsman and as captain.
The current BCCI President has termed the phase as the “biggest setback” of his career when he was stripped of captaincy role and subsequently dropped from Team India’s ODI squad in 2005.
“That was the biggest setback of my career,” Ganguly told Bengali newspaper Sangbad Pratidin.
“It was an absolute injustice. I know you can’t get justice all the time but even then that treatment could have been avoided. I was the captain of the team which had just won in Zimbabwe and I get sacked after returning home?”
The Prince of Kolkata further talked about how this saga ruined his dreams of winning the ICC World Cup 2007.
“I dreamt of winning the 2007 World Cup for India. We had lost in the final the previous time. I had reasons to dream too. The team had played so well under me for the last five years whether it was home or away. Then you suddenly drop me? First, you say I’m not in the ODI side, then you drop me from the Test team too,” asserted Ganguly.
After being dropped from the Indian team in 2005, Ganguly made his comeback a year later against South Africa and silenced his critics with consistent performance. He averaged 44.28 in Test cricket between 2006 and 2008.
The stylish left-handed batsman further remarked that he doesn’t want to blame Chappel alone, although the Aussie was the main instigator.
“I don’t want to blame Greg Chappell alone. There is no doubt about the fact that he was the one who started it. He suddenly sends an email against me to the board which gets leaked too. Does something like this happen? A cricket team is like a family.”
“There can be differences of opinion, misunderstandings in the family but that should be sorted out with dialogue. You are the coach if you believed that I should play in a certain manner then come and tell me. When I returned as a player he had specified the same things then why not earlier?” Ganguly added.
