Greg Chappell: Coach or Politician using Divide and Rule
Indian World Cup dreams are over but the crisis Indian Cricket is facing is far from being over. The man at center of all attention is Greg Chappell, The coach of Indian Cricket Team.
Is he really the coach? Or Is he a mere politician who has used policy of Divide and Rule to systematically destroy a team and to maintain his authority by playing his cards.
The era of Greg Chappell as coach of Indian team has been marked with one controversy after another. The list of controversies is huge. Chappell and Ganguly, Chappell and Yuvraj, Chappell and Tendulkar, Chappell and Harbhajan, Chappell and Sehwag, Chappell and Chappell's finger.
Now more recently Chappell and Dravid, Chappell and Tendulkar, Chappell and Seniors, Chappell and SMS.
Lets looks back in history and see what happened.
Step 1) India Australia series, Greg helps Ganguly to sort out his batting and gain his confidence. Ganguly hits a century in the very First Test.
Step 2) Ganguly returns the favor by recommending Mr. Chappell for a Coach. Mr Chappell is appointed as coach and soon realizes Ganguly is way too powerful and devises method to have Ganguly removed by playing Dravid against Ganguly and Laxman against Ganguly.
Step 3) With Ganguly gone Mr Chappell starts to throw out some of the Ganguly men who were not as powerful as some others. Some examples are Nehra, Zaheer, Balaji and Kaif.
Step 4) More powerful members like Yuvraj, Sehwag and Harbhajan are more difficult to remove but are made insecure.
Step 5) Dravid starts realising what Chappell wants and starts backing Players like Sehwag and Yuvraj and has his way to take them to world cup.
Step 6) Chappell now sees Dravid becoming too powerful and sends a SMS to a journalist that he did not get the squad he wanted. This SMS would only be shown to public after the world cup dreams are shattered. To me it looks like Chappell had a plan that if all goes well he will take all the credit and if nothing goes well he will use the SMS.
Step 7) He starts using Senior vs Junior card and starts questioning attitude of senior players.
Step 8) He also questions that Indian Team has not won a tournament out side sub continent since 1985.
And some of us started agreeing, without even questioning why was he hired for last four years. What has he done? Agreed Indian team might not have won, but if my memory is correct there was time in Ganguly's captainship when it was said Indian team enters the finals of every tournament just to loose it and people had started counting how many finals we went to and lost. I think I lost the count after we went to 9 consecutive finals and lost all. At least we were not out of tournaments in first round.
Yes, by now most people would have categorized me as Chappell hater. May be that is right. Buts lets ask a few questions. What is job of a Coach? To Improve or to Point Fingers.
Did Indian Batting Improve in last four years? No
Did India Bowling Impove in last four years? No
Did Indian Fielding Improve in last four years? No
So what was Mr Chappell contribution to the team when we did not improve in any way? We learnt how to point fingers from Mr. Chappell. We learnt how to invite controversy.
So what did Mr. Chappell do? Divide and Rule......
Is he really the coach? Or Is he a mere politician who has used policy of Divide and Rule to systematically destroy a team and to maintain his authority by playing his cards.
The era of Greg Chappell as coach of Indian team has been marked with one controversy after another. The list of controversies is huge. Chappell and Ganguly, Chappell and Yuvraj, Chappell and Tendulkar, Chappell and Harbhajan, Chappell and Sehwag, Chappell and Chappell's finger.
Now more recently Chappell and Dravid, Chappell and Tendulkar, Chappell and Seniors, Chappell and SMS.
Lets looks back in history and see what happened.
Step 1) India Australia series, Greg helps Ganguly to sort out his batting and gain his confidence. Ganguly hits a century in the very First Test.
Step 2) Ganguly returns the favor by recommending Mr. Chappell for a Coach. Mr Chappell is appointed as coach and soon realizes Ganguly is way too powerful and devises method to have Ganguly removed by playing Dravid against Ganguly and Laxman against Ganguly.
Step 3) With Ganguly gone Mr Chappell starts to throw out some of the Ganguly men who were not as powerful as some others. Some examples are Nehra, Zaheer, Balaji and Kaif.
Step 4) More powerful members like Yuvraj, Sehwag and Harbhajan are more difficult to remove but are made insecure.
Step 5) Dravid starts realising what Chappell wants and starts backing Players like Sehwag and Yuvraj and has his way to take them to world cup.
Step 6) Chappell now sees Dravid becoming too powerful and sends a SMS to a journalist that he did not get the squad he wanted. This SMS would only be shown to public after the world cup dreams are shattered. To me it looks like Chappell had a plan that if all goes well he will take all the credit and if nothing goes well he will use the SMS.
Step 7) He starts using Senior vs Junior card and starts questioning attitude of senior players.
Step 8) He also questions that Indian Team has not won a tournament out side sub continent since 1985.
And some of us started agreeing, without even questioning why was he hired for last four years. What has he done? Agreed Indian team might not have won, but if my memory is correct there was time in Ganguly's captainship when it was said Indian team enters the finals of every tournament just to loose it and people had started counting how many finals we went to and lost. I think I lost the count after we went to 9 consecutive finals and lost all. At least we were not out of tournaments in first round.
Yes, by now most people would have categorized me as Chappell hater. May be that is right. Buts lets ask a few questions. What is job of a Coach? To Improve or to Point Fingers.
Did Indian Batting Improve in last four years? No
Did India Bowling Impove in last four years? No
Did Indian Fielding Improve in last four years? No
So what was Mr Chappell contribution to the team when we did not improve in any way? We learnt how to point fingers from Mr. Chappell. We learnt how to invite controversy.
So what did Mr. Chappell do? Divide and Rule......
Comments
1) Ganguly(before being dropped), Sehwag and Kaif, had been given enough opportunities to perform.
2) I am not clear, what you mean by Divide and Rule: what was he trying to achieve by Dividing? Indian team not performing well, would not have done good to him too: he ultimately resigned after only 22 months as a coach...