It can be plausibly argued that the problem with Chappell wasn't his candour, it was his propensity to intrigue. Several cricket journalists I've read or spoken to (and this includes Chappell's protagonists) testify to his habit of sending sms messages to journalists leaking his views on players, selection and policy. The players who disliked him complain about how manipulative he was. They might be wrong and self-interested but it's odd that Indian journalists and commentators should find the stereotype of the straight-talking Australian and the truth-denying Indian easier to credit than the chorus of allegations that Chappell's preferred mode for communicating with the media was the modern equivalent of harem whispers.

Just as odd is the 'balanced' view that equates criticism of Chappell and his methods with a willful blindness to the structural problems of Indian cricket. I find no difficulty in holding in my head (at the same time) two related but distinct ideas: 1) that the BCCI presides over a mess and 2) that Chappell is a terrible coach. The need for structural reform and the necessity of making the best of what you currently have aren't contradictory goals. A good coach will have a vision of the future, but his primary job is in the here and now. Chappell had poor results in the here and now when he coached the national side in arguably the worst organized cricket system in the world (India) and he had indifferent results when he coached a provincial side in the best organized cricket system in the world (Australia). It seems to me that Chappell is the constant here.

Clint Eastwood was a great star who returned to the movies to direct others in hugely successful films. Greg Chappell as coach is Clint Eastwood in age…only without the hits. Speaking for myself, I'm delighted he's gone.

Spot-on!

Well said. Couldnt have put it better. Have to agree with Sanjay Manjrekar though about Indian players taking responsibilty for their poor performances of late and the limited role of any coach in a teams performance. I also feel that the Indian team is not as bad as it seems after the WC exit. They will bounce back!

Well said. Couldnt have put it better. Have to agree with Sanjay Manjrekar though about Indian players taking responsibilty for their poor performances of late and the limited role of any coach in a teams performance. I also feel that the Indian team is not as bad as it seems after the WC exit. They will bounce back!

Agree with your assessment of Chappell. Even though I liked his penchant for straight talk, I had a big problem of his coaching through the media.

Thats calling a spade a spade mukul! am afraid -somewhere subconsciously all of these people (manjrekar et al) have started beleiving in the 'process' BS - not a bad thing really - but I would have bought it if chappell was made say the head of NCA - but he was made the Indian coach and like you rightly said his success would have been to get any given bunch to perform - look at dav whatmore - he has identified strengths in a team considered 'minnows' - Even sandip patil delivered with a kenya - There is a saying which goes - the dancer who doesnt know to dance blamed the stage - that's what I think chappell is doing!! Thank god he is gone - let us now give him the role of cricket administrator and see if the 'process' helps!! just kidding!

As you say, the problem with Greg Chappell (and Ian Chappell for that matter) is that he is completely and utterly obnoxious! His personality would grate on anyone, never mind a team in close proximity to him for two years!

Chappell was the wrong coach at the wrong time, however, the problem for indian cricket is that there is to much money floating around creating inflated egos, players and board members etc etc.... and basically your team has no got the skill nor talent to play and win against the best around, hopefully this world cup will be a wake up call through out indian cricket, players, backroom staff even the media that basically indian cricket is not as good as it thinks it is.... wake up smell the coffee!!!!

I remember very clearly during the appointment of the coach - India had two options - Chappell and Moody. Thank God that India opeted for Chappell - and Moody moved to Sri Lanka.

I could not fathom why India opted for Chappell when Moody had so much more credentials as a coach. Chappell as a coach is a failure. I just hope that Moody stays with the Sri Lankan Team for another stint.

This is as frank as an Aussie (like Chappells) is!

Thank God someone stood up to all this crap being spouted about Indians in general. At the end of the day we lost a game to Bangladesh... perhaps more pointedly we looked an increasingly disorganised team that had little confidence in individual abilities and had run out of form. Chappell has to take the blame, along with the tinkering selectors of not being able to put together a team that had the faith to perform to its potential. A change in coach in and of itself should significantly help improve things though just because its a breath of fresh air. The efforts to explain this as something embedded in our national psyche or a dilapidated system is ridiculous. We have made progress in every field possible, Indians are an outward looking aggressive bunch that have the fire to succeed in whatever they do and the confidence that they can.. the cricketers are probably in this group too. Further, looking at what the West Indies is going through and the lack of interest in cricket in general in countries such as England, I would imagine that in comparison we have a pretty good system in place. Most important, the sheer number of people who want to excel will mean we have quality continuously coming through. The demands and pressure that you have to go through of reaching a select 11 among a population of aspiring millions if not a billion should prepare you well enough to handle pressure on the global stage. If someone can get these guys to a level of athletic fitness that competes with the best, we will have one of the top 3-4 teams in the world. What we need is a selection committee that has the backbone to drop non committed cricketers and persist with young players through rough patches. Ranatunga and Ian Chappell can pontificate about Australians and South Africans all they want and act as though we are in a state of despair, but this same country reached the World Cup Finals 4 years ago... with the same system we have in place now. Things will return to normal and with an elite core comprising Yuvraj, Raina and the constant stream of fast bowlers we will be as well if not better position to pummel the opposition on some days and play badly on others, but youngster's fielding standards, their strength and pace are improving... the exceptional talents of Sachin and Kumble will replicate itself in time... and we will win. Just because we want to succeed as much as the other guy, and if you believe you are upto the mark in your field of endeavour then chances are, so are Indian cricketers.

I think its time for us to face the truth. We have stop worshiping the so called over rated players and make cricket a team game rather depending on indivisuals, who perform in every 10th game when the axe is on them. We should learn from Lanakans and Bangalis and even the Irish that what team can do on a given day.
Totally agreed with Sanjay as he always portrays the right picture and neutral about his observations rather being an indian.

Will you shoot the messenger if the message is delivered the wrong way or look at the message he wants to convey!?!

Chappel's way of sending messages may be wrong his way of dealing with big egos of Indian players may be wrong!!

but the point is not this. the point we should discuss is what he says is right or wrong and i do believe and fully agree with manjrekar here that he showed mirror not only to players but us as well. he has asked questions which we fear to answer. we the worshippers of cricket lords.

boycott once famously said that its not about tendulkar its about india...we must remember that!

its not about whether chappel was right in his ways or not only if we avert our directions/debates to the "message" what one wants to convey is right or wrong we can come to conclusion which will benefit indian cricket in long way.

When the debate is on who is right rather than what is right its better not to have debate at all.

We were never great winners and after this world cup it is established forever that we are not even good losers!

I could not agree more. What this controversy has shown is that everyone is keen to take sides, the fans, the various segments of the press. By taking sides, we subconciously assume one party is the devil, the other the poor victim. The reality is often somewhere in between, with both sides equally at fault.

I would extend Mukul's argument and claim that I find no difficulty in holding in my head (at the same time) multiple related but distinct ideas, all of which have brought us to this dispair: 1) that the BCCI presides over a mess 2) that Chappell is a terrible coach, 3) the star players are repeatedly underperforming in key situations, and perhaps focussing more on the commercial benefits and self-interest and 4) India has absolutely no bench strength, which elongates the careers of stars, and allows them to neglect their performaces, while making the job of any coach/selector that much harder.

It is clear that Chappel had serious shortcomings as a coach despite his pedigree. Hired as a frank, no-nonsense man, he has turned out to be a caricature of the straight-talker, an obnoxious man with no diplomacy, tact or sensitivity, unable to maintain confidentiality, a sure recipe for disaster. Even if we were to fire the entire Indian team and start from scratch, I would not trust Chappel with the task of nurturing India's next generation of cricketers.

Those who harp too much on Indian team's inability to handle the 'honesty' of a foreigner, do a disservice to John Wright, who managed to handle the same set of players a lot better (atleast for the first 75% of his tenure). His understated yet tough approach was the kind of workable ethic that is shared by other successful coaches such as Tom Moody.

The senior players cannot hide behind the 'horrid coach' theory for their continual lack of performance. It is not just the World Cup, we have failed repeatedly since 2003 in key games. Cricinfo's recent study of how the Indian batting has failed bowler friendly ODIs is only part of the picture, a similar sad analysis is due for test matches too.

Indeed why does a batting line-up with more than 400 tests, 1000 ODI, heaven knows how many 1000s of international runs between them need a coach at all? Why resort to sulking and blaming an individual for spoiling the team spirit, when the best way to restore the spirit is to perform well?

Before and after the storm
--------------------------

Cricket is at it's best when the game is played the way it should be. The naked truth here is that 'potential to perform and to withstand the pressure of playing cricket at the elite level is very scarce in the team's outlook'. Now let's look at this issue from all the angles.

Coach: Agree it or not, a coach's responsibility is not just psycho-analysis or critic-establishment. It's rather knowing the team and being a part of it. A coach sends himself to the pitch in the form of players. His views and approach reflects a lot in the ability of the players. So not taking the blame for the loss and pointing finger on the mistake is wrong. Rather being straight forward and analysing the issues in the locker room is more crucial. I do know about the locker room ethics as I do play sub-district level cricket in Australia. The coach cannot put on the pads which is true, so now let's see from the players point of view.

Team INDIA: When you represent a nation full of cricket worshippers. I would not call fanatics because its not as worse as the footballing nations. So the other nations who call us cricket fanatics, please look at yourselves with ur favorite sport. Please you have no superiority to deliver sanity. So back to the players. First taking responsibility when you play a serious game. And don't fall back on one or two guys. Yes I'm talking about depending on just the key players. The key is the team. Working as a unit. This comes only when you strive for oneness in the team. To cut short the long story, the players didn't play their potential. And it's a bitter truth. Calling their careers in the line, would be a hasty decision.

Indian cricket: I would totally blame the mode in which the cricket selections are done. The raw truth is the unsung bias on players. With a massive amount of cricketers at our disposal, why dont we search for talent within every group. Why dont we make our competitions right. Please develop good facilities within India, than building stadiums for foreign countries just to make money out of the game. We love the game not the commercial part of it.

My view is...India should look back at itself. Select players based on current performance. A coach who gets the better player out of everyone and making the players know their strengths and weaknesses.

I'm happy that there will be a revolution in Indian cricket..very soon.

Hi Mukul, must tell you the "Chappel" way that I am not pretty impressed with your article this time.

Why on earth is every one looking at the end product (the cricketers, the coaches, the results). Why does one not peek into the system as such. If I were a journalist I would do a little peek a boo into the functioning of the BCCI and find out what the hell they are doing with all this money. How can we expect professionalism from the players (in between a huge pay does not qualify someone to be a professional) when the BCCI is filled with, I dont know what to call them. Charity begins at home and therefore the system has to be revamped. I find it a slap on every indian cricket fans face that a politician is the head of the bunch of jokers! mama mia!

If a particular child in a family misbehaves, the problem lies with the child, but if all the children in the family misbehave, then the problem lies with the parents. The same applies to indian cricket. I dont need a phd in journalism to get that right do I?

"The world richest sporting body cannot provide a team of fighting men!". Aye mate, a good topic for a phd research in Journalism!!!
Augi, Germany

money sucker is gone --- sucking the money of india
1. Giving a team which cant make to world cup super 8.(With this team India went to world cup final 2003).
2.Breaking teams moral by playing politics among team members.
3.God knows what is in the final report that will help to destroy the career of Indian cricket.

He is a coach not god , treat him like coach and dont allow him to rule india.

Very well written. In my experience the people who proclaim themselves as 'straight talking' are usually the most crooked ones.

after a long time a post that one can agree with completely. chappel has been a failure as a coach. this is not meant to say that all is hunky dory with the indian team, but chappels shortcomings can not be overlooked in this case.

with one problem out of the way, the bcci should now work on cutting out the dead wood from the team and start rebuilding in right earnest.

There are two distinct facts that I notice in this whole episode. Chappell's integrity is questionable, especially with his ways of approaching the media in an indirect manner. No self respecting coach should have done this, especially if he is expecting the team to rally behind him.

Another factor that deeply disturbs me is Sachin playing the "sentiments" card to the masses. It is sad to see a great player resorting to such tactics to gain brownie points.

Indian cricket is in an absolutely terrible state.

Sunil Gavaskar was the best coach India had..Under Gavaskar, India made a record winning 17 matches chasing..won a series outside the subcontinent after 20 LONG years, won a series in West Indies after 35 YEARS, won a test match in South Africa for the FIRST TIME EVER...
Its Great that Greg Chappel hasn't renewed his contract. Its time we went back to the golden era of Indian Coaches

I really go with Sanjay's argument, people had written that coach has to bore the team not performing, so if the team performs its the coaching performing isnt it?, then y are we calling Kapil dev as a great captain who had won us the world cup 25 years back, or y do we call Lloyd, Imran, Waugh or Ponting as best captians, how many of us all can say and name the coaches of these men when they won the world cup, look at the face of our indian players, they dont have the nthing to win matches, c their fitness, with 5o runs on board these fellow wanted by runners to ru, look at other teams especially Australia, South Africa, Newzealand or Srilanka for that matter, they rarely use by-runners bcos they dont get hurt soon, if they get hurt they will not intend to play the series, but our stalwarts wanted to play all the matches with one main intention of making money. Guys and gals lemme tell u one thing India has been always an average team like an average student, dont expect them to score centum in board examination yar, if u think that way then u r not a good follower of cricket.

What ever has taken place in the last few days is an indicator of the days to come. When a coach is appointed to do a job he should be allowed to do his job without outside meddling, The media has elevated our cricketers to such heights that it has has made them feel like invincible Gods. When the coach made them realise that they were mere mortals who have to fight for their place in the team thats when the ego syndrome got it. Tendulkar must realise that if a coach comments about his commitment i am sure he is commenting about his present form and not refering to his 17 years service to the nation as claimed by him. Tendulkar bhai you are a professional and you are paid to do your job. You and your ageing bunch of dead wood should not emotionally black mail the country by making us feel that we are obliged to forgive you for your disgracefull performance in the world cup. Tendulkar your 17 years of experirence and service to the country only succeeded in getting us out of the world cup. The Senior Indian Player's Body language on field and in the players sitting area was a clear indicator that they did not have even an ounce of desire to win the world cup for India.
Now its the time for The Senior "Mafia' to take responsibility for this mess and gracefully step down admit that you are totally out of form and let some on in form take responsibility to bring India to its winning ways.
Our Wise old selectors should take some time off go to the Himalayas do some serious thinking about their ability to select the right people to do the job.. for Gods sake bring back Kiran More at least he had the guts to make bold decisions.
We need a Professionaly trained coach and a Strong Headed Manager.

God Save Indian Cricket.........

For once, Mukul, I think your instinctive 'Indian' insecurity got better of your thinking. You may be right that Chappell wasn't the greatest coach; and you may be right that Indians are capable of straight talk; but both those points don't lead to the conclusion that this bunch of senior player could deal with straight talk (to spell it out more clearly: Not all Indians can deal with straight talk.). All the ridiculous hullabulloo over the Sourav incident is a case in point - a captain with a terrible and deteriorating batting record was rightly dropped and it became a controversy over personalities. Now the refrain is that Chappel made players insecure...and that is why they failed to jell as a team. Does that mean that all Indian players should be given a lifetime employment guarantee - like the bureaucrats that roam Delhi. Well actually, the senior players seem to have such a guarantee defacto. And they have begun to perform as efficiently as the Delhi babus. Chappell tried to shake this boat - whatever one may feel about his methods. And that has led to a team rebelling against its leadership. Its shameful really.
That Chappell would have left was predictable, especially after Tendulkar's petulant outrage. But where that leaves India, I am not so sure. Surely, the BCCI is not going to reform itself. The best hope we have is of a team that can play cricket with passion and commitment, like the Irish or the Sri Lankans.

I say drop Tendulkar, Sehwag, Harbhajan - let them fight for their place in the team. They were great and when they are great again, we will let them in the team. Bring in a bunch of young players who at least won't insult the fans of Indian cricket.

The issue should not be whether Greg Chappell is a great coach or not. Are the players good enough. Just two days back before the game against PSV Eindhoven, Rafa Benitez said that a coach cannot be a genius if the players are not good enough. He told the journalists that even with the best tactics in the world, if he put 11 journalists on the pitch, they would lose. Frankly, Mukul, this Indian team stinks. I have followed all the major international sports for 35 years and the one constant factor for all successful teams and individuals is the fantastic work ethic that they have, whether they be football teams, basketball teams, tennis players, golfers, swimmers, gymnasts, athletes etc. Without this work ethic, you can never be champions. This Indian team with all its glorified overpaid, pampered, physically unfit superstars has the worst work ethic I have seen in 35 years. I have nothing but absolute contempt for them when I compare them with people like Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, Michael Phelps, Steven Gerrard and many more. With or without Greg Chappell, the situation will not change.

Agree with you that the discussion of this situation need not digress into national stereotypes. But "thin skinned" and "neurotically sensitive" are apt descriptions for this squad of losers.

With the exception of Dravid, none of them has the discipline, selflessness, moral fibre and capacity for continuous self improvement that is needed.

You can make out through the body language of Sehwag, Harbhajan and Yuvraj - each of whom believes that he has arrived in life years ago and has nowhere else to go.

You can make out through the graceless sight of Sachin talking about how he has given his life to cricket etc. The underlying message is that his place is on a pedestal as an object of worship.

As for Ganguly....he is probably the cancer that Chappell was referring to - cured in 2005 but recurred in 2006 !

The reports of these guys forming coteries and plotting to undermine the coach and captain are something that I find very believable.

As expected Greg has been made the big scapegoat for WC debacle and all the senior players can continue with their place in the team as well as their commercials(even without putting up a good performance). Next WC is 4 yrs away. Meanwhile enjoy some gr8 victories and records by playing Zimbabwe, Kenya, Bermuda!
Congrats to Tendulkar on (almost sure as the drama is going as per script)becoming captain for a (un)lucky third time!

Point here is not about chappell being good or bad ut about our players performing miserably. I mean if it has come to a stage where Sachin's out there with statements about coach... I guess the blame lies with the players for not measuring up to the occasion when it demands and sadly enough for all the name and fame they (at least think) have not for the first time either.....

Forget Chappell and his coaching methods, we don't know how the players reacted to his statements. We don't know the inside story to these things.
All I can say is that I've seen the Australians and the other top teams, they've taken their cricket to another level all together.
We can sit back and complain about coaches, but what are we going to do about all the other issues that plague our cricket? our soft attitudes, or physical weakness, our lack of bench strength? Was all this Chappell's fault too?
Why does everyone tend to get so defensive? Chappell has left. So what can we do now? We can simply crib about what sort of a coach he was or we can also look at our exposed cricketers and cricketing system and call for an overhaul.
Lets wake up at least now! please!

Very accurate and a refreshingly frank assessment. For all his invocation of the holy word (now 'inflammatory')process, he himself never played by the rules. 'Process' also entails that members of a unit be honest with each other, do not leak out news and must make adjustments (ideological and personal) for the good of the unit. There is a difference between a management guru and a manager which he failed to realise.

However, I hope that we do not discredit the word 'process' because of Guru Greg. There are institutional problems with Indian cricket (and not with Indian psyche) and we need to address those with sincerity.

Well said and well argued. Said would roll over in his grave if he read what Sanjay Manjrekar, Anand Vasu, Sambit Bal et al are pushing as the new "Clash of Civilizations" - the essentially fair, but hard taskmaster Sahib losing ground to the scheming Hindoo / Native who knows only to nod in agreement in public and defy in private. For all the process I hear, and all the inflexibility shown by the seniors, when was Chappell ever keen to review his own processes, specially when they brought no result and when was he flexible to listen to other school of thoughts ? Case in point - how did Ian Frazier qualify as a bowling coach.

Greg never had a true "process", as that entails review, and adjustment. He had a fixed method of working things to his own liking. That is not a process.

First of all, Greg's record was no better or worst than John wright. Look at the stats. Our boys will go to Bangladesh, kick some butt, and we will all say, " see what differece a good coach makes". We can blame greg, but what about performance. Is Sachin willing to give back some of the money he made because he failed. Unfortunately Indian players feel that they are bigger than the game. Until they held accountable, no coach will make any difference. I didn't like some of the things Greg did, nevertheless, lets not say that he was the cause of taking the indian cricket down. And thsoe that feel that Patil delevered with Kenya obviously don't know how Kenya made it.

Well i may be the first person who is not at all surprised by the elimination of the indian team. and i think its their good luck that they are not in super 8, because i'm sure that they will loose all theor 7 matches, and think about it what will be scenario then? and why i'm not surprised that we are not in super 8 is bcos of simple reason, that we are still on experiments, we dont have set opening pair, for batting nor for bowling, we dont have fix spinner, actually no player knows that what position he has to take in match. we put Sehwag and Robin for openning one is totally out of form and other dont have any experience. few days back Shrishant was our front bowler with Munaf and now ???? few days back we had Romesh as our spinner, and now? so !!! i think Greg is still experimenting the things may be he has next world cup in his mind. and keep on shouting for young players so that they may be in his team for nexy world cup, look at Australia, South Africa, Lanka, all of them are still banking on their experienced players. Right now i think , Sir Viv, or Steve, or May be Ian Botham would be the best choice for our coach. From India i think Ravi Shastri is better choice, he is good in communication, trategy, Planning, and also have some good repo with players. He has fair enough experience and also played under some of the finest players, and was part of the team who win world cup, Chamions of champion, Asis cup and so on. so GOOD LUCK to Ravi Shastri. yes you will be the next.

For those looking to blame Chappell....here is all the info you need to know... straight from cricinfo
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/288746.html

I doubt if this comment is going to be published...so far whenever I've put something out that differs from the slobbering "you are so right mr whatever" is submitted..it never makes it to the main page. But it would be good to let the masses who worship the stars like tendulkar know that if these guys quit whining and actually scored some runs...there wouldnt be a need to whine in the first place as no one can question their place in the team.

I cannot understand the hue and cry surrounding the exit of team India from the world cup. First off all ours is not a strong team to beat the top guns such as Australlia, South Africa and to an extent Newzealand. Compare and assess player by player in their current form and we end up saying none of our players matched with the current form of players from these countries. For instance take the opening batsmen, can any one say there is atleast one player in the whole Indian team who can match with the current form of Gilchrist,Hayden,Smith or any others.Take the case opening bowlers, the story is same. Back biting and back stabbing in Indian cricket is not new. It was there long before I learned to see the game of cricket.In my youngers days the ego or personality clash was between Kapil Dev and Gavasakar, then Azaruddin and Sachin, then Ganguly and Sachin etc.......and now Dravid. Everyone has their own supporters and group. This is a phenomenon in todays world and not limited to Indian cricket alone. Be it in Pakistan, Srilanka, Australlia, England, West Indies, groupism and personality clash is there and this menace can never be curbed, but it is usually buried for some small period for certain goals to achieve. Let's atleast bury for some time, all these ego and personality clash for the resurrection of Indian cricket.

As an Australian of Indian origin, it is both sad and at the same time frustrating to follow the orchestrated finger pointing by the players, the BCCI and the coach after their exit from the World Cup. I fully agree with the comments of Mr. V. Prabhakar. Sachin can go on and on about his life-time committment to Indian cricket, but the hard cold fact is that he is a liability in the team. He has not improved an iota in the last 5-6 years, and on the other hand, his performance as a batsman, a fielder and a bowler has gone from bad to worse. In the modern world of super fit and highly skilled cricketers, the Indians come of as lazy sloths, almost pedestrian in nature, with no drive, energy or motivation to win games. Their singular world cup win was a flash in the pan, and their claims to being world beaters will always be laughed at from now on. We are what the Sri Lankans were 10 years ago. It is a long hard trek ahead.

Greg Chappell had just about started perfecting the Fine Indian Art of Spreading the Blame or Finding the best Scapegoat, and would have succeeded,had he notinadvertently implicated the (presently clay footed) God of Indian Cricket.

I dare to put forward another hypothesis-Rahul Dravid always burnt with the desire to oust Ganguly and used Greg to get rid of him...but did not take into account the Indian Public's fickle sympathy for the underdog...and Saurav's own powers of bloody minded self belief made himcome back.Stupidly,Greg started crowing about his "succeess"in Throwing Ganguly and Zaheer out top pasture and rehabilitating them.

If at all I had any quibble about this team,it would have been about Raina and Kaif not being picked.Why Kaif?Because he did quite wellin difficult batting conditions and Raina ,well with his fielding,and exposure,was bound to come good.Apart from that the best team was picked.

I believe Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell are hand in glove,Rahulis terribly insecure about his leadership.

I believe Dravid lost the respect of the seniors by becoming Greg's stooge and never standing up for his players.

I believe Dravid should go definitely as Captain.Bring Ganguly back as Captain with a 1 year brief to groom the next Captain....Sehwag/Yuvraj.

Appointing Sachin would be a backward step and would solve nothing.

Indian Cricket needs young talent.Look around they are there..Raina,Rohit Sharma,Tiwari...

Not so good to see Sachin begging for his place

The Indian team should have stuck with about twenty players and tried and trained them to get ready for this World cup. Take a look at Sri Lanka and New Zealand, they had miserable record in One day cricket but they stuck to their choices and let them develop. Unfortunately, the selectors and the board didn't have such courage to let a group of people to develop and play.
I am not suggesting that the coach be completely absolved of the results. Don't just blame him, the cricketers, the selectors, the system and the corporate sponsors and the media can take as much of the blame. Just to be honest, this current Indian team wasn't good enough to be in the semifinals. To suggest that would be an affront to the four teams that will eventually get there.

SPOT ON!!! Indians need to come out of the comfort zone and look at the West or I should say the WHITE culture...Sometimes it is good to say things as they are rather than sugar-coating it.. The bottom line is India played horribly and I somehow have an inkling that the players who were against Chappell, made sure that they exit out of WC by their performance and ensure that Chappel is kicked out as coach. If the BCCI have the guts, they should "rest" these senior(GOD) cricketers for the BD tour, have an interim coach, preferably, Dav Whatmore as a trial run before the ENG tour, appoint Yuvi as captain and Kaif as VC. It is high time that these senior players are gently shown in the door in the next year or two and parallely building up bench strength. This is the only way that India can ensure that when these senior crickters leave, a vacuum is not created...

Mukul: from the sublime to the ridiculous - that's how your articles are - much like the batting of the Indian Team!

Greg Chappel is leaving has resigend Sir, GET THE MESSAGE!!

Why do you still continue to write about him and how glad you are that he has gone? That's pure childishness and immaturity - perhaps a bit of attention grabbing on your part? Somehting you seemed to have abhored in Greg Chappel.

Why don't you concentrate more on how we can improve the Cricket in India or do you want to become the Shobha De of cricket journalism?!?!?!

Disappointed not befitting Cricinfo's stature to put such a petty article on their web site.

Nirbhay Singh

Truth nothing but truth - that's what Greg tried to say, but unfortunately it is always difficult to accept the fact. indian Cricket is in the hands of mafias, bookies, corporates, etc who are the deciding forces for the selection Indian team.
Despite their regular failures in the field our so
called fit for nothing senior palyers are in the
team on the mercy of the above said mafias. No one
can save the Indian team unless these senior players themselves retires (which is not possible)
& pay the way for the yougsters who should be selected on the basis of performance & strictly commited to the cricket game alone. Indian cricket board has not gut's to do so & hence it is only a dream. But if these things not happen,
one thing is sure... soon or later Cricket charm will go as Hockey did - there are various signs have already started. Jai Hind.

I agree with chappel being not a good coach but I can't agree that a coach can do a good job with what he has been given now and here. A coach can only deliver if the players put in an effort to learn. Unfortunately Chappel(a batting legend himself) has been put up with Stars of Indian cricket who think they know everything and are very laxed. Sure they may want to represent India and want to give their best but being stars they dropped their fitness and practice to such low levels even god cannot do a good job with them. Let's not talk about lesser mortals like Chappel. People need to remember it needs to hands to clap. A coach is only as good as a sincere team. Indian cricket team is bogged with internal politics. I know it because one of my friend is best friend of Laxman, I had privilage of taking his wife's ticket and other players tickets to watch an India Vs Pakistan match in Burmingham. He says that Ganguly and Dravid both undermine his presense in the team as he is threat to their captaincy and only Tendulkar favours him. Offcourse he even blew his selection chances now. Point is nothing is right in this Indian team and no coach can do anything with their attitudes. There is no passion in them their bulging bellies and fading reflexes are a reflection to their attitude.

Players from india and pakistan take their place in the team for granted. Our players have no dedication, no passion for the game. Most of our spoiled players play for themselves, to make more records so they can't be broken. Just look at tendulkar, the only reason he is playing for india right now is to make more runs towards his 14000+ runs so it won't be broken for another decade or so. Just look at how younis khan plays for pakistan, his batting style shows that he doesn't play for the team. He plays for himself, or he plays in the team because his place is secure. Being a pakistani, i am glad that inzi has retired as a captain because he did not have leadership, he was a great batsman no doubt but only when he wasn't a captain. It is sad to see that both teams are a mess right now and our management does not realize that success starts from the bottom. We need to improve our work out methods so that our players are fit for the whole game and not get tired after half a day. We need to improve our fielding, we need to also develop a killer instinct that australia has that just go out and win. No matter who we play (ireland or bengladesh), we should take that game as we are playing a world class team. Our politicians need to be out of our cricket making decisions ala musharraf. What the hell is he got to do with making cricket decisions in pak cricket. If we want to challenge australia then we are going to have to play like them or else we dont even have a slightest chance to win against the top teams.

I am happy to see Chappel go. He was a bit of an anarchist, trying to destroy the system so that order might emerge. It did not work because it was simply not his job. His job was to make sure that the players agree on a cohesive strategy and are fit , motivated and happy. he failed miserably especially in the last two counts and therefore should go. I would love to see the BCCI get a paid CEO instead of an elected president. and I hope they get rid of whatever remaining dead tracks are there in the country. Going by the domestic results, it does appear that pictches are more sporting now. Cricket is a business and the BCCI should run it like that.

Suresh you say that Indian team is like what Sri Lanka used to be 10 years ago...SL won the WC 10 years ago!

what a wc it could have been...what it has become...exit of india and pakistan has redcued the interest...i am not sure how important a coach is...but someone has to tell sachin, dravid, ganguly, sehwag that winning is the only option. Everytime they should play to win...they should attack 600 balls...they should believe in themselves...belief comes from winning...win comes from belief...but how many times we have seen that if we are 2 wickets down ...we will crawl at 3.5 per over...fear of losing is haunting everyone...shouldn't be the case....we have the ability to mass huge huge totals...we should target 350+ in every game....

India won the WC beacuse Kapil ,as captain saved India from a defeat to Zimbabway. Same thing happened last time when Ganguly as a captain saved India from a defeat to a minnow(Kenia)and reached the fianl. So this time another minnow Bangladesh caused blush because there was no captain to save India. The fact speaks for itself.

This fixation with Chappell the coach v the players is a bit strange. Sure, it is the players who perform out there in the middle, but isn't that true of just about every other sport, soccer included, where coaches have often paid with their jobs for the failure of their team? Ask Sven-Goran Eriksson! So if it happened with Chappell as well, it is neither unusual nor unique.

Good piece. I especially like that finally someone called this "indians weren't ready for a foreigner's straight talk" what it is: orientalist nonsense. What Chappell said may have been right but the way he said it was wrong. Wright was a foreigner but apparently knew how to get things done. And since Chappell measured players by their performance we must measure him by his. At the end of the day, this team did not progress to the Super 8s on his watch. A team not too dissimilar from that of 4 years ago. For this he bears responsibility - not in whole measure but substantially. He should go because he didn't perform - Gred old man, you reap what you sow! - A

I think Mukul got this one wrong. If you take the basic point that Coaches can have a very limited impact, then our players have let us down terribly. And the mirror that Greg displayed to the "star" players", they didn't really like what they saw in it.

Great article Mr. Kesavan. This reminds me once again why you are my favorite cricket writer. You cut through the "straight talking" hype and laid it threadbare.

The problem with our seniors is that they are one-dimension players. Ganguly or Sehwag for example depend on scoring boundaries to have a good game. They are a liability in other areas. Of course, there are times when they come up with a very good catch or important wicket, but that is more of a rarity than a common occurance.
One other point, economically, it is advtg for the seniors to have juniors who dont perform well with bat/bowl (since they are better in the field).
Unless, the board respects fitness and 100% effort as "must-have" aspects of the game, things are not going to change.

Excellently put! You said what I always wanted to say. That BCCI is a terrible organization and cricket in India is in a mess and whatever success we have had in the past is despite BCCI and not because of it. And also that, Greg Chappell never had the credentials of beiong a cood coach and I find it no wonder that he failed at the international level when he could not manage to get a state side winning. WELL SAID!

I am glad Chappell is gone but I would be gladder still if the man responsible for bringing him would be gone as well, yes step forward Sourav "Dada" Ganguly. When the majority of the other seniors wanted Moody in 2005 we know who plumped for Chappell. I say root the divisive element out and I hope you Mukul...write about it. Look forward to reading it in the Calcutta Telegraph.

Mukul: Thanks for echoing my thoughts so lucidly on your blog. This utter crap about all Oz's being straight talking and Indians cannot take straight talk crap is bewildering!
If players felt alienated from the coach then the coach has failed in his primary job - that is the plain and simple truth. Whether GC and the players were alienated is still not very clear and let us wait for the report to come out.

My problem is that all these journalists (even David Hopps) is suddenly saying that GC said a few thing in private on about the players and forgive me if I am wrong, that is something a coach should never ever do. And if he did that, all these theories of OZs are straightforward and Indians are people with twisted tongues and can't take straight talkers is just stupid.

Well, Mr Wright could be with the team for 5 years only because he dare not take the superstars head-on. In a way he is responsible for the current mess. If he had taken a sterner position dealing with the so-called superstar players, and made them understand they cannot continue on past glory alone, things would have been much better.

I agree with mukul regarding Chappell's SMSing capabilities, but i have to point out the fact that he was the only one to actually speak the truth. In a land where cricket is considered a religion and it's players god, someone has to bring these players back down to earth. Tendulkar hasn't performed in over 3 years (centuries against bangladesh, zimbabwe and timbuktoo do not count) and he has the audacity to say that the coach's comments hurt his confidence! I am sorry, i did not realise that after playing cricket for nearly 16 years, he still needs someone to hold his hand for him. Do i hear violins in the background? Somebody give him a pacifier already! I used to be a huge tendulkar fan but after hearing his comments i lost respect for him. All he wants is to become the captain of the team; as if the first time around was such a memorable experience for all of us. Honestly, i think we need more chappells in the indian cricket board. Get those greedy, slimy politicians out of cricket and also all those idiots we so love to call selectors. Mohinder Amarnath had called the selectors a bunch of jokers a long time ago. Sadly, it's still true.

Hi Mukul,

I have always admired your articles . However , this time i think you cannot be farther from the truth . Why should Chappell bear the blame for our debacle ? Harsh though he may be , what he said had the ring of truth most of the times. Answer me this , in the past ten years , apart from Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman , which Indian batsman has performed consistently against genuine fast bowling under the most unhelpful of conditions ? Steve Waugh in his autobiography disdainfully names us flat pitches maestros . He also mentions that he could see fear in the
eyes of our batsmen when Brett Lee was bowling to them (in Australia where we were blanked 3-0 with Sachin Tendulkar as captain).

Moreover , Sachin Tendulkar for all his greatness , has not performed well over the past few years. He has also been showing signs of insecurity.
First he lashes out at Sanjay Manjrekar for some pretty innocuous statements and now he uses the media to gain some sympathy . Why shouldn't Chappell question his commitment ? Even if he were upset , he should have answered with the bat
and not his mouth (as he was doing for the past many years.).

Coming to the case of The Royal Bengal Tiger , well he definitely gave the impression
of playing for himself and not the team.

Now coming to the media . Barely a week before the Bangladesh debacle , we were
told that this team would win us the world cup . The moment we were thrown out of the world cup , the media turned upon the very people they had hyped like a group of sharks scenting blood . Then why build up unrealistic expectations in the first place ?

Lastly coming to our cricket administrators . For all the money they have at their disposal , our pitches are sub-standard , our outfields not
conducive for fielding , our stadiums not upto international standards. What exactly is happening to all this money . It seems all these little men with big egos (comparable or bigger than our superstars if it were possible ) do is to make some comments to the media when the team is down .

Coming to the point that wright was better in handling our cricket team , i do not think this is correct . Wright clearly mentions in his book Indian Summers that some players after performing well in the initial stages started taking
things for granted and displayed a lack of commitment . when warned about being dropped from the team , they had merely snickered and walked away.Wright was lucky that he jumped ship when the rot was about to reach its pinnacle .

The thing is , Indian cricket is only about big money , bigger egos , even bigger mouths , huge hype and unbelievable noise . Take away all this and see what you find.

The funny brother Ian wrote an article as well about why Greg Chappel has resigned...

and that simply reflecty Australian attitude... if you are incompetent, blame it on others, attack and make other people defensive. In this case, brother Ian is simply grouping along attacking Indian cricket and players...

i don't get this. our team jelled extremely well against bermuda but didn't against the better teams. this says just one thing about the team- the lack of cricketing ability. sure tendulkar gave 17 years to cricket, but t he sgame compensated him more than adequately for his 'sacrifice'. dare i say that steve waugh also gave quite a few years to cricket but he was sacked afetr just one bad series. i don't remember him defending himself by resorting to sentimenatl blackmail. Ganguly was rightfully chucked, sanjay is right when he saysd that the coach is being made the scapegoat here. chappel tried to shake out the complacency in the indian camp and the seniors revolted against him . shameful!

Mukul, For someone who normally holds very balanced views, you have 'tendulkared'. Incidentally, that has been a term I am using for the last 2 years in managing my teams to get someone who gets too big for his boots to Earth.
The Good news was that we had a coach who could actually have got something done. We concentrate on his SMS's to journalists rather than contents of that SMS.
Let us start rebuilding Indian cricket with Greg's vision. Let us at least not loose that as well.
I am sorry that you have fallen for the sad story of a bunch of politicking non-performers.
Regards
Prahlad

"indians are like that"?????
come on.
it is one of the insidious remarks going around right now extolling virtues of australian frankness and denouncing indian courtesy.

So i guess the cricketing fraternity will be very happy when an aussie calls all sorts of names at a batsman because he is very frank and forthright in his views.

let's face it. Chappell's conduct was grossly unprofessional.
He seemed to me technologically challenged.
Time and again his confidential emails were "leaked" to public, his SMS went to journalists!.
that's not the way to conduct business.

and now it seems he is fleeing for his life. ever since Woolmer's murder and india's exit, he fears the worst and rightly so. no wonder he packed his bags soon after another public email.

If you are in the news for once, coincidence, twice mishap but when you pry on controversies then it is your character.Greg Chappell likes to be in the talk all the time. Commentary or writing can be far better for person like him.

Being a total desi at heart, I wonder sometimes, if its really a game that's being played these days or just a matter of 22 fools (24 including the umpires) scurrying around on the grassy fields and 22 million fools egging them on. True, its a game, and that's all it should be. We all know it was more the players' responsibility and maybe to a certain extent the coach's responsibility too. I disagree with Mukul's point that Greg should take the majority of the blame. If I was playing for the Indian team and someone told me that I was not performing/was slacking in my approach, I would push myself harder to disprove the observer's comment. Sadly in this case that doesn't seem to be the case. With the money pouring in from commercial ads and sponsorship deals, do you think that the fools like Tendulkar and et al. really care?????? If they did care, they should have allowed their bats to do the talking. I have read so many articles where they say that the performance on that particular day is what matters. How long have we been saying that? How long have these very journalists and media men kept saying the same thing over and over again. Indian cricket needs a complete upheaval. Will it happen? Going by the way things have gone so far, the 1 plus billion people can only keep dreaming, foregin coach or desi coach.

I speak as an Australian and I agree that the current trend in the media to generalise about the relative psychological properties of Indians and Australians is at best too simplistic and at worst smacks of lambent racism.

That said I think that this column under-values Chappell's worth as a coach, neatly failing to mention his success as coach of Australia A to cite but one example.

I do not claim to understand Chappell's motivations in supplying SMS messages, perhaps he feels at liberty to give his opinion to those who ask it, which would argue in favour of him being frank and straight-forward. Perhaps he feels that doing so is one way to get what he wants from players, perhaps that is manipulative, but manipulating players to get the best from them is the coach's job. From this distance I can't say for certain, and neither can the columnist but that doesn't stop him deciding on the negative interpretation.

You can have the best coach in the world, but ultimately whether or not a player performs is their responsibility. The public dissension from the senior players leaves me with the impression that they lacked the inclination to implement their coach's plan. Under those circumstances it seems ludicrous to blame the coach for the players' failure to produce results.

Hi Mukul,
I agree to some extent with your analysis. But your title seems somewhat provoked by racism and hatred toward India. You made the worst mistake by generalizing a few Indian's attitude as that of the entire population. I hope don't do the same mistake in future. I or some Indians can speak the same way about Sri Lankans but we won't because we are good people.
As far as Sanjay Manjrekar is concerned, I think it is better to ignore him. I find it funny when a bunch of loosers like Manjrekar, who can talk the talk but not walk the walk, come up with such big statements. Manjrekar should hold a mirror in front of him before he puts it in front of Indian team. He was hardly talented and his cricket was never entertaining. Suddenly, people like him can analyse the game better than the Indian team. He should have used his wisdom when needed.

I am no fan of ur work in the past. In fact hated a few articles that you have written on this blog, but here I must say you are SPOT ON.
The concept of breaking what was working moderately with a promise of creating something that would be work great is stupid.
GC broke team India. He probably had great intentions, but his management style sucked. You dont leak things abt the team to the media in any culture .. indian, autralian or american.
talking to the Media about the dressing room was what Ganguly was accusded of in Zim. How Chappel is any better.. I fail to understand.
I am happy that he is gone. But i think he has done irreparable damage to indian cricket.

oh yeah get a new coach 'n all the batsmen will score 100's 'n bowlers will take 4-5 wickets 'n fielders ...mmh...will stop any moving ball outside the inner circle.....like the good old days before chappell.WAKE UP PPL !! we 've some good batsmen average bowlers 'n maybe a flash of reasonable fielders 'n astrnomical figures of money 'n more politics than the local MLA's 'n power brokering that can shame the pimps !!!
hey face it man thatz indian cricket now .

((dont brag bout records,cos' records 'n performances r diffenent))

There s some real issues happening in ind and PAK cricket, and it has more to do with politics…
PAK cricket can b sorted quickly but Ind will have a problem..

Mafia ,money ,politics are all mixed up in Ind cricket….
First get rid of this South Indian Mafia campaigns and politics,,, it’s a breeding ground for many terror acts more than we know. and its growing in its illegal mafia acts and spreading to the good parts of India…..

Kick out these politics from South India.. Not the cricket coach.(well PAK did make that mistake)..
Then the both countries can play the best cricket,,,,,

The comment made by this guy HENRY IS SPOT ON..,,,,
” unfortunately it is always difficult to accept the fact. indian Cricket is in the hands of mafias, bookies, corporates, etc who are the deciding forces for the selection Indian team.
Despite their regular failures in the field our so
called fit for nothing senior palyers are in the
team on the mercy of the above said mafias. No one
can save the Indian team unless these senior players themselves retires (which is not possible)”

reg.

Probably the most important reason Chappel did not want an extension in his job is the Woolmer incident. No sane human being would risk his life coaching a team with a fanatical fan following.
He was lucky that the guy at Bhubaneshwar aiport just slapped him; what if he had shot him.
It was in Chappel's best interests that he quit. There is no point in trying to coach a bunch of players who think they are bigger than the game.

The main problem is the 'IDOL' status given to the team.
Corporates, pleeeeeeeeeeease stop signing up these losers as your brand ambassadors.
The players don't know the reality. Chappel did his best to show them the mirror & look at themselves.
While the rest of the cricket world - Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand , are making giant strides, we India (a nation of 1 Billion people) are going backwards.

Mukul I don't blame Chappell for this WC ouster. Dilip Doshi says Chappell's blame was 10%. About right.

The coach works around the selectors and captain. Chappell got heavily involved in selections and that compromised his coaching from the players POV. Did players benefit from the Aussie duo? Bowling (Manuf & Sreesanth) is better than before (Nehra, Balaji). The older players are painfully difficult to change. eg. look at the batting of Dravid (as an ODI opener), Sehwag (middle), Sachin (middle). This reflects VERY POORLY on these players. Essentially, they failed to adjust and were the cause of so many Indian collapses (regardless of the batting order). Ganguly is similar. You may call them the uncoachable.

Chappell's idea of going for younger players made perfect sense. Yuvraj, Dhoni and Pathan (batting) adjusted well and improved their performances. They help India to wins, unlike the older lot. Raina's unselfish attitude was excellent.

Bowling has been India's weakness. Chappell reminded Indians that good fielding (eg. by Raina/ Kaif) made a huge difference to bowler's success. Dravid said it bought them an extra wicket in ODIs. Nehra, Balaji, Zaheer and Kumble were poor fielders and average bowlers. Agarkar, Pathan, RP Singh, Sree and Harby were better bowlers and FIELDERS. Manuf reversed this tend. But Manuf is a fantastic bowler (ie. >> Nehra). Sree didn't progress in ODIs (=Balaji) and RP/ Pathan dropped off.

In other words, the older uncoachable players had returned. Zaheer atleast was a very good bowler. The dropping of Raina and Kaif further compromised fielding/ team ethics. The current team has too many uncoachable players - both test and ODIs. Chappell's idea is that Yuvraj is heading the seniors way and should be stopped. Many so-called experts say, "What can the coach teach the likes of Sachin, Dravid, Sehwag, Ganguly." That's perhaps the BIG problem.

Other so-called experts says, "Sachin knows when to quit! Leave Sachin alone!". Indeed it is not Chappell's business - that's selectors job right. However, selectors in India are used to doling out favours. Take Kumble - the worst selection for WC. P Ramchand -cricketarchive.com- says while profusely praising Kumble on his retirement: "Kumble had lost his sheen - Before the game against Bermuda in eight ODIs Kumble took just six wickets at almost 60 apiece and at an astronomical strike rate of 74. So his ODI career ended with a whimper." Unlike for senior batsmen, Powar was a FAR better alternative.

The CURRENT selectors made big mistakes. Apparently, one performance from Uthappa and Karthik was enough to make these selectors' heads spin. Wow!! Ganguly's 60+ in 120+ balls with pathetic running for his partner was match losing. Ditto failures from Sachin, Sehwag and Dravid. No team has been so poor at the start and put up a good score!! I can't blame Dhoni and lower order as they were under too much pressure. Remember, cricket is a team game. Batting from the four senior batsmen let India down. India's fielders and opening bowlers also are to blame.

What was really shocking (and unexpected) was that fear in their hearts had turned them to jelly (esp. Ganguly, Dravid, Sachin, Zaheer and Agarkar). Sehwag didn't stay long enough!! They had no business being at the WC.

Who the hell said that 'Indians are like that'????
Look around the world and you'll know what Indians are capable of.

For how long will we keep thinking that Indians have something wrong with their attitude or psychology?

There are some weaknesses in this cricket team, but, nobody spoke of them before WC'07. It suggests characterlessness of the highest order if columnists are writing non-sense like this taking advantage of hindsight bias.

One incident (or defeat) is not a reason good enough to insult or make judgemental remarks about a billion people.

chappel had some good coaching ways..
And he s got unmatched talent and knowledge..Ind had to utilize him as a coach.Players(some seniors..) wanted a coach to be controlled by them..,,
well in that case buy a school boy and pay him as coach.....

we will c chappels worth when he does wonders with a future team.and may b it will be PAK team for good.

and Ind will really c the effect then.!!!!!...

we have to kill these south indian politics,,other wise Ind cricket will b in a deep pit for ever

There have been few posts talking about how does it matter how the coach is, its the players that perform. Well cricket as a game completely depends upon the vibes amongst the team, which in our case was missing (due to Chappel's intrigue/bias etc.). Its said that he had leaked certain negative comments about Yuvraj's fitness to the media.. If this was his attitude then i really dont see how could he possibly bring the team together.. We as a nation are emotional people and so i assume our players would be.. and Greg/Dravid(gentlemen) cudnt use this strength of our players.. remember Ganguly swirling his shirt at Lords, Indian team's huddle in 2003 world cup ...

Other than being president of the United states. There are two other employment positions that amount to equal similar high scrutinise of their country when expectations are not met. They are the coach of the English football team and the other is the Indian cricket team where the blame is alays asserted to the coach(s) whether they are local or foreign people ar just not happy.

When India won their world cup against the mite of the West Indies it was done with grit and passion...no coach but the victory was a team effort against the odds of mite.

Pakistan...Australia...Sri Lanka have also one world cups on the same underdog / team spireit basis....no luck..they as well as India won as underdogs in being written off.

India needs to go back to its crickets roots of the Kapil Dev's, Gaviskars, Shastri etc. For them to get off the arm rest of the sports comentator couch to instill their cricket culture of the past to correct prima donna culture that the current players enjoy "WITH OUT SUCCESS"...or are they caught up in all the talk and not willing to walk such talk.

Good luck Indian Cricket....hire foreign coaches... then sack them because your great players within the team cannot accept a critical comment from the coach of a team looking for answers from a consistantly underperforming team containing national hero's of the past.

as i stated in a before thread;
sachin should draw back his comments and apologize...

Greg is one of the finest OZ's have produced and all OZ's will nod to that.that guy s got a strong personality and Indians were not used to it and his comments....,,

we shold take him back b 4 he goes to PAK(he surely can and why not he go there??)

WHAT SAY YOU?

Same old sub-continental mentality.never accept ur own mistakes.in cricket coach has no role what so ever to play.media has over hyped the role of coach in the game of cricket.its the players who are totally responsible for the win and loss of games.coach can't bat or bowel for u in the field.so don't put blame on Chappell.ask ur so called superstars why they didn't perform?Indian and Pakistani cricket players are among the richest cricket players in the world but there performances are pathetic.I feel they have got used to to earning easy money.make them hungry by cutting there incomes and tide there income with there performance and than the same guys will start delivering results.
use this receipe and u will see the results immedietly.I am giving this great receipe without charge.lol
its absolutly useless to waste energies and looking for excuses for the exit of these two teams from the world cup.
and finally to Indian fans,I think its time to stop worshiping Tendulkar for a while and he should be asked about the reason for his poor performance not only in this world cup but for the last 4-5 years.he seems like a shadow of his past and is dragging himself with the team just on the past glories.he is more of a burden on indian side rather than asset.either drop him like Ganguly and ask him to sort himself out or else quite this game and give chance to a promising youngster.

What are our "chumpions" repeat "chumpions" complaining about insecurity if they don't perform? Do they imply that even if they score zeroes, 5's and 10's in match after match they should have reserved places for a lifetime? No team is more pressured to perform or perish than the Australians. A couple of bad outings and the guy is out cooling his heels. And here we have our "idols" Sachin scoring pathetic sums of runs, and feeling hurt when they are criticised? For the record. In two years since Sept 2005 we have played top teams Australia and South Africa eleven times. Sachin has an average of less than 15 in those games. If he was an Australian player he would be on an unemployment payout, and not playing cricket

Great Players seldom make great coach. The game comes too easily to them. They cannot fathom the challenges faced by an average player. Which is why great coaches as Buchanan, Woolmer, Whatmore etc. had ordinary credentials as players. I recall Steve Waugh making a remark that India should have chosen "Moody" and how right he was.

I am surprised to see so many people suddenly finding faults in Greg Chappell’s methods. Where were you MR. Kesavan, and Wadekar, Srikkant and others, throughout Chappell’s 22 months tenure? None of you pointed out the problems with the ‘straight-talking’ Aussie’s style. Why did this not come to light before? Or is that you have a found a scapegoat for Team India’s debacle?

Chappell was a great player and, as captain, a darned good strategist. But great players and brilliant strategist do not necessarily make good coaches. After all the brilliant strategies have been devised and plans put in place, the final and possibly the most important ingredient is to motivate the team to go perform according to the script. There is one specific quality essential for a coach—ability to communicate. And that often requires diplomacy, understanding of his ward’s circumstances and nature (i.e., the cultural background of Indian players). If your players haven’t bought into your plan, then possibly you haven’t communicated (motivated) appropriately. May be that is where Chappell got undone. Straight talk and diplomacy are not mutually exclusive.

But why blame Chappell alone? The committee that interviewed and selected him bears a certain degree of responsibility as well. Clearly they failed to check up on Chappell’s credentials as a communicator, motivator and persuader. Ironically, Gavaskar, who was part of that committee is now being suggested as a possible candidate for Greg’s replacement. It has been written often that as the captain, Gavaskar was aloof and not very communicative with his team. Coach selection committee beware! Before you select the next coach, interview the teams he has coached to find out how he communicates. Step up to the plate Kapil Dev.

Then there are of course situation when no amount of communication will get the other guy to perform because there is little accountability. Typically, those players who have ‘secured’ their place in the team are often the most autonomous. The newcomers are far too insecure to ignore instructions. The mirror Chappell held shows that certain seniors need a chick in their behinds, Tendulkar included. Fans and players on Tendulkar bandwagon are all arguing what a great batsman he has been. Why is no one talking in the present tense? ‘Perform or perish’ has to be the mantra for any team that dreams of dislodging Australia from the top spot.

Finally, BCCI should be run like a corporation with a CEO and the players should be “employees”. They should be fired if they don’t deliver according to the “job description”. Otherwise we fans are being gypped while the advertisers, players and BCCI are all filling their coffers. We are the ones who are paying them.

Mukul, great article. We Indians tend to follow what others have done for their success and expect the same success for ourselves. Nothing wrong in that but unfortunately it does not always work. Sometimes success only come when one does something different (a calculated risk).

Australians by nature are very competitive folks. Winning is a part of their culture. There was a program called Discovery Atlas in which Australia was profiled. Believe it or not one of the favorite competitions they indulged in their pubs was fighting a certain variety of toads!!!!wow.The point is Australians compete for pleasure.

Whereas Indians believe (or are taught from childhood) more in the fact that "participation is more important than winning". Thats the reason, majority of our players are submissive in nature.

I strongly believe the Indian team was the strongest team which India could have sent (may not be the strongest team in the world). But, where we lacked was the mental strength. The ability to lift ourselves when we are down. Being a developing country, majority of our upbringing makes us fear-driven and not reward-driven. I think thats where we lack behind.

We have always been a culture where we needed a super human like Gandhi to lift us up when we are down and out. We thought Greg was the man to save our cricket and show it some direction. But results have shown that, it was a mess. Greg was a failure in his mission to ensure India does well in the world cup (his target). A coach has to be a strong leader and a great communicator. But someone who despises more than half the team unfortunately is neither.

Yes, Greg did point out the problem areas, but did not implement solutions.Some might say he was not allowed to implement. Well the news is that nothing in life is easy, one has to adapt and succeed. He was more like the Management consultant when he should have been the CEO. I am also glad hes gone.

Greg leaving, is a good first step. The next step would be to analyze Greg's findings and move forward using methods which compliment Indian way of thinking.

The article is biased and one sided written with a preconceived notion that Chappell is bad for Indian cricket...Truth hurts and thats what Indians hate to digest...Only Chappell had the guts to drop a larger than life paper superstar ganguly from the team when he was not performing..Back in 2005 ganguly's form was awful and he was in the team resting on past laurels..If Chappell was given a free reign he would have had the other paper tiger Endulkar dropped a yr back when he was hanging on the team only his stature and not on his form...As far as harbhajan was concerned he never had talent and he was in the team banking on one perforamce against Australia 6 yrs back. Agarkar is another inconsistent performer who is in the team becoz of his mumbai roots...Dhoni and yuvraj have an attitude ..They think they are superstars .They have an habit of playing to cement their place in the team and not to win matches...
sachin's record in recent times--

Sachin Tendulkar since Sept 2005 against Australia and SA in one day matches
Innings : 11
Runs : 155
Average : 14.09
100s/50s : 0/1

No other team in the world would pick him on the above performance but for India he is "Master Blaster". BTW what has be blasted recently ?
greg questions his attitude and this kiddo goes bombastic...wah re wah...So nobody should question this lamb when he is not performing...It happens only in india...greg did the right thing to resign.he is too good to coach a team of jokers..
I might sound harsh...but this is the truth.

Can any body from India and Pakistan quote me one single improvement which their foreign coaches brought to their respective teams,both the nations were suffering from FCS (foreign coach syndrome)
I thought the foreign coaches were brought in for technology and strategy and all that BS, but all we got from these coaches after them making things worse was a straight talk.
So here is straight talk from me "KHAS CUM JAHAN PAK". For godsake this Indian team was the finalist in last world cup,and the Pakistan Team was consistently ranked 2nd or 3rd in ICC rankings
before the world cup these coaches have to take some responsibility.
However the selectors also have to share the blame as they failed to show the door to some of the old explayers and induct New Talent,as far as the players are concerned I have never seen Indian and Pakistani team play so miserably it seemed every body was playing for himself and not for the team,they were too defensive i dont know how much the coaches were to be blamed for that but werent they suppose to make them aggresive and professional.It seemed that the teams were under a spell at times the players looked clueless was it the pressure of the world cup or lack of confidence or skill but whatever it was the responsibility has to be shared by everyone the coaches first then the selectors and then the players.
Anyhow one part of the disease is taken care of
now we need to get rid of some holy cows in the teams,and change our domestic cricket structures.
So much for technology back to basics.

While I do find it a bit strange that Chappell chose to send sms messages to journalists on a whim, that is about the only fault one can really find with him. While your article is correct about how the team fared under the Wright regime, perhaps one needs to look at what Chappell was really trying to set right. Our team has always been a "Team of Champions" and as another reader has put it - a "Champion Team" will always beat a "Team of Champions". Unfortunately, our problem has always been that we play first for ourselves, and then and only then - for the team. Chappell did well to see through and set right the main culprit of degenerative effect of the self-serving Ganguly regime - Ganguly himself. Thereafter he tried to instill the concept of "playing for the team" into our players. I think this worked well for a while - after all we did achieve a world record of the most number of successful run chases in history.

The problem unfortunately is that the concept of playing for oneself is instilled into the Indian player's psyche at a very young age, and it took not very long for that ingrained characteristic to resurface. And this process spiralled out of control with the return of Ganguly, who brought with him the return of factions within the team. It is unfortunate that we have teams such as Kenya, Namibia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the ODI arena, for if we didn't, Ganguly's lack of runs against other oppositions would take care of him for good (and lets not have someone reminding me of the one odd innings).

Now we have Tendulkar - the ultimate team man once upon a time, giving press statements that can only be detrimental to the team's morale. And this was not the first occasion - remember the big deal that was made out of Dravid declaring on him at 194* .... why did we need a press conference then? Will our cricket always be about the individual? Again unfortunately, I am sure there will those in the public who will defend Tendulkar blindly, even this very unwarranted public statement, and in that sense we are all to blame for we put the cricketers on a pedestal where they can do no wrong. At least I for one am shocked as to how few have really seen through the whole Ganguly facade.

What we need are committed team players like the Dravids, the Laxmans, the Kaifs and the Sreesanths, and we need to get rid of politicing trouble makers and self-serving players like Ganguly, regardless of his successes against backyard attacks. And yes - we do need hard-nosed coaches like Greg Chappell, because - to go back to a line I read elsewhere "A Champion Team" will always beat a "Team of Champions". And through this whole mess, it is only Dravid who has maintained a dignified silence.

Indians are like that !!!

When a 30+ Murali is challenged by the coach he responds by practicing a lot and taking brilliant catches. His attitude is "I am paid to play cricket, I better put time to make sure i am good in fielding"

A 30+ Rahul Dravid wants to hide lazy overpaid cricketers by doing 'smart' fielding (what the @#$% is smart fielding?) A 30+ Tendulkar is challenged by his coach, he responds by feeling insulted. A 30+ Ganguly doesn't want to convert one's into two's and a not yet thirty plus Sehwag wants to increase his waist and not his average.

Hopefully, not Indians are like that. Please do not try to categorze an entire nation's work ethic.

Mukul, you should read the article by Narayana Murthy defending Chappel. It was awesome in its simplicity. he says that if you are unwilling to put in the hard work and follow the process then you don't have any right to blame it.

Compare that to your blog. The following paragraph reads good. But I could not fathom the point you were trying to make in the following paragraph: "...It can be plausibly argued that the problem with Chappell wasn't his candour....The players who disliked him complain about how manipulative he was. They might be wrong...." Chappel was trying to make the best of what we had. But our best players were not willing to give their best.

Basic problem with this analysis: it ignores the fact that Wright worked with a team that was much better: Dravid, Ganguly and Tendulkar were far superior players back then. Tendulkar's slide in form, in particular, has been very noticeable. This is a function of age and injury and a loss of considence. He should have retired two years ago - not because he isn't good enough to play international cricket (he's still a good batsman but a shadow of the player he used to be) but because he makes us cringe by the way he plays now (one cannot but compare him to the Tendulkar of old - I am one with Ian Chappell who believed that a player should quit when people ask, "Why now?" as opposed to "When?").

So I have to disagree with you Mr. Kesavan. A coach is only as good as the players he has at his disposal just as a card player is only as good as the cards he has at his disposal.

I sincerely hope that this fiasco wakes up some people who are sleeping in the 19th century. The age of amateurs is long gone. Its time to learn from the team that is no1: Australia.

Totally agree with Manjrekar, i would also like to put my point further by saying that if somebody is pointing at u that does'nt mean that he's blaming but if u really have a right attitude u would get to the point what he(Greg) mentioned about u. No doubt u might be senior but accepting a good criticism would'nt make u a small person.

Coaching in sport requires a number of skills. In my opinion the most important being able to man manage and get the best out of an individual/group of individuals. Making them feel secure, confident and to work as a team.
If a player has reached the standard that he is representing his country his technique should be of a standard that needs very little futher input. What good is a coach to players like Tendulkar/Dravid etc these guys dont need coaching (as John Wright said in his biography). Greg Chappel may have 101 ideas on how to improve + take a team forward, but the reality is that he doesnt know how to get the best out of a person, which is more important.
Cricket is a simple game that is often over complicated. Surely if India had picked there best players regardless of age/looks/advertiser appeal/state they were from etc..etc. and then stuck with the same team with the same batting order over an extended period of time they would have found success.
As Shane Warne recently commented a coach is for getting too and from the ground.

My heart sank when Greg Chappell was appointed coach of the Indian team as he as stated earlier had no previous success as a coach and secondly you only had to listen to his guff to realise he doesnt possess the skills a coach needs.

I also feel the people who appointed him should take some responsibility for the current shambles. If Tom Moody had been appointed (and im not just saying it with the benifit of heindsight) he was the man with experience + success as a Coach! India might now be still playing in a world cup.

Anyway on a brighter note as an Indian Fan the beauty of sport is that there is always another series. We must now move on. India still have a strong collection of Players. Appoint the right coach and India will recover

Thanks GOD he is not any more with Indian cricket team.
The way Chappel treated Sir Ganguly was not fair.
Ganguly is the legend leader of indian cricket history but we did not treat him correctly.
Look at Imran Khan his bowling & batting was not very good in his last few years. But he was the grate leader, and Pakistan board support him and kept him as a Captain regardless of his bowling & batting performace. He won the world cup for them.

But in our case we insulted Sir Ganguly.
We should bring Ganguly as as Captain.
Irfan Pathan should be his vice captain.

For coach Kapil Dev or Mohammad Azharuddin are good options.

One of them should be in the key position of the board too.

Endulkar should go and replace him by Mohammad kaif permenatley.

Raja ka Baja BAJA

If Mohammad Kaif & Irfan Pathan were is the world cup squad, the results could be different.
We could easily make for Semi Final with them.
We also need a good leader like Sir Ganguly.

Bring back Sir Ganguly as a captain.
Under his leadership, Irfan was banging batsman by his pace & swing bowling.

He knows how to use the Diamond beause he is also a Diamond.

Chappel Ka Baj Giya Bajja
Raja, Raja, Raja

If you are playing the blame game, the credit has to go to the Indian skipper and the coach. A passive captain and an aggressive coach is not essentially the most sought after combination in this day and age. Dravid is an exceptionally talented batsman and it stays there. He cannot lead a side. In regards to Chappell, to be the coach of a foreign side, first and foremost, you have to understand the culture of the country. Chappell has failed miserably there. Cutting and chopping leads to player insecurity. I feel sad for Kaif especially. Though he was not in sublime touch, Kaif is known to be a gritty cricketer. Raina, Powar, Sreesanth and Pathan also fall into this same category. How long is Mr. Agarkar going to play cricket for this country being so inconsistent. A bowler's job is to either take wickets or contain such that the pressure is mounted on the opposition and the bowler at the other end does the job for the team by taking wickets. Harbajan also falls in this category. We cannot be playing these guys for long. And to win a world cup, consistency is the key. And, obviously, only the best fielding sides are going to make it through. The men inside our 30 yard circle were, Dravid, Ganguly, Yuvraj, Munaf (once in a while), Sehwag. These guys are safe catchers. In that I mean, a ball coming straight at them will reach only the pouch. But they are incapable of pulling out blinders. Come on guys, we all new India was not going to win the WC. With a team like this, our batting(supposedly, our strong point) had to come good. But with all the cutting and chopping enforced by our coach and skipper, no one was really sure what their role was and it was only confusion and chaos that ruled ultimately. Spare a thought for our players though. The pressure on them is simply unfathomable. You have to first try understanding what it is to play for your country knowing that your family as well as your home is in danger. Now, there are a few things Team India need to set right if they want to get better

1. Cut down the number of Ads. Atleast for the sake of not getting booed when you play miserably. Instead dedicate those sessions in the nets. It has to come good in the end.

2. Dravid needs to step down. Give Kaif a chance or if not it has to be Ganguly again. But I doubt if Ganguly himself will want the coveted position.

3. Get a coach who can understand the sub-continental psyche. Whatmore, Amarnath and Wright fit the bill. Not Gavaskar or Shastri please. Viv Richards sounds exciting. The most important thing to be noted here is that, the coach does not have to technically correct most of our batsmen becasue they are good enough. Statistics and television footage is ample evidence. Sachin and Dravid are probably the most techincally correct batsmen to have ever set foot on the cricket field. So teaching the youngsters how to bat in different situations should be their responsibility. Our bowling department needs a lot of tinkering and tuning. Bajji needs to get his bowling right. India needs him because he is the only spinner who is good enough at the moment. Piyush Chawla reminds me of Paul Strang. But yes, age is on his side and it is upto him to get better at his art. Getting back to the coach, his job would be purely to motivate the team and instill a sense of belief in them. The coach also should come up with strategies and tactics. Ever heard of Mr. Bob Woolmer? He was definitely the best coach ever. He spots the talent, grooms them and brings them on to the big stage and also instills a sense of cricketing ethic and discipline in them. Gibbs, Pollock, Smith, Boje, Kallis, Boucher are all examples of his work. Does Boucher even remotely look like he is technically sound. Absolutely not! Self-belief is the key.

firstly, I am not Indian and secondly I do not support India, or Team India as they call it. This are honest opinions/observations as a neutral party.

almost all literature written since india's exit has one thing in common - greg chappel has been portrayed as a victim..

as a coach, i think results should talk.. many people talk abt. how straight forward he is or how visionary, blah, blah but in the end what was india's win/loss ratio under him?

the moment india got hammered by rsa and windies in their respective home grounds, greg chappel should have been fired.. he shouldnt have been allowed to go this far.. just like what they do in football.. team does not perform, coach gets the boot... period.

and c'mon man where is the professionalism? u can say whatever u want, or be however frank u want to be. but pls do it in private.. u dont go to the press and make all kinds of comments.. all it does it piss off ppl and divide the team..

my 2-cents on this is simple.. greg chappell was a lousy coach with zero professionalism just didn't/couldn't perform.. he should have been fired way long ago..

and pls measure a coach on the RESULTS he produce not on what he talks/suggests/comments/blah blah..

Results, results and only results should do the talking.

Mukul, there are 2 other things which is quite sure here
1) Mukul does not like Chappel and is afraid of facing reality just waht Chappel tried to change.
2) Mukul does not know ABC of Cricket
And Irnoy of India is that Mukul is writing Cricket Blogs on one of the world's largest visited Cricket Web site.
ha! We "Indians are like that" for sure

Indian cricket team sucks our amotions.
They are losers.
They are Lion in India specially against weak teams but outside India they are foxes.

Look at thier fitness, most of them does not look like sports players.
No muscles, only made by bones, nothing to show off.
This is the reason I put Shoaibi poster in my bathroom, so cool.

Julie 19
Bangloar

Sanjay Manjrekar is not a proven authority to comment on a team as it is apparent from his playing days. He is not a great player, not even in the league of Ravi Shastri in skill and determination. I believe he started taking English classes, on the way picked some flair of western cricket commentators, copy phrases (mirror from Ian Chappel column) and convey same information in twisted, political and targeted sentences. Similar the case with Kiran More. Media pay them to write and they will churn out a note overnight mechanically to please people. I don't see an honest opinion from him or I don't see his opinions are honest enough. I work in an environment which is a mixture of Europeans, Americans (well offshoot of previous), and Chinese etc. There is a lot of talk other than subject and unwanted jokes though finally group discuss the subject in few minutes and decide. They call it is breaking the ice, easing the group tensions etc and I see it as beating around the bush and wasting time. It's simple; we all work towards a common goal and let's talk about subject rather than talking about weather, week end trips, and finally leading into the subject. Is this beating around bush culture or a polite, talk less and to the point is a beating around the bush culture? I have seen multiple cultures and all have similarities but our guiding principle and philosophy hold above all( not referring to religion or god). I believe strongly it is the best to diffuse tensions and instill calm among the people. The only gap that I see is the openness displayed due to security of the societies in developed countries.

What baffles me is how cricketers fail what ever may be the nature of pitch(pacy, spin etc). I believe it is simple see and hit game. In my opinion, the major gap lies in the fact that there is a lack of mental strength and dependency on others laurels than each individual strengths. It's a team game no doubt but each individual has to contribute rather than assuming I will hit out and Dravid will build a wall otherside/Tendulkar would use his experience to bolster!!!:-)(funny word though) in the middle. Batsmen has to bat and score runs and the way he has to bat depends on how the opposition. Bowler has to react to the situation in similar way. McGrath bowls well on all pitches(I am not looking at statistics) compared to any other bowler just by bowling in the right areas.

Such belief should be installed and it requires a process as indicated by N Murthy and it will not happen overnight. After all the process, it is upto individual to perform and process measures the performance to correct itself or the follower. Process provides support and guidance but do not indict punishment and forces you to stand naked before the public. Did Chappel resort to this? Even if he resorted, World cup is not the stage to under perform to show dissent against such tactics. One hand media/players/BCCI says Chappel is great on the other hand same talk about SMSs. Can some body come forward and show us what Chappel SMSed and how critical was that information to hurt players to under perform in World cup.?

This simple philosophy need to be followed by team management.

Other disgustingly surprising fact is many of the game followers focus on pay pockets/endorsements of cricketers which are beyond the fun. We are here to enjoy the game and everyone has a right to earn what they are upto. If there is an opportunity to earn I am sure all those remarked would endorse equally.

I want to mention one thing - Indian cricketers are the most laziest and indisclipned people. They home crowd, money, power, fame makes them think they are next to god. There are few (I don't want to name ) goes beyond that and thinks even the GOD is next to them. It is the money which is talking in the team, heart, mind, soul and blood of our cricketers. That is it and nothing more. They all live in their dream world. Cricketers like Gavaskars, Kapils, Amarnaths, Erapalli, Bhagwats, Mankads did not had this, so they played for cricket. Current players play for everything else which are very dear to them - money, money, money in that order. If they come to earth - then they can see sports personailities like Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Andy Roddick.

Manjrekar is an idiot. Ian Chappell is an idiot. Greg isn't. He did some good, so let's give him some credit for making us a better test playing nation. I also think he could have turned the one day team around in a couple more years. But, the man just didn't know how to give respect and take respect, and had an annoying tendency to take credit for anything that went well, and pointing fingers everytime something went wrong. Coaching wasn't the right profession for Greg. He belongs in upper management in corporate America. And as is my policy with such management types, I'm glad Greg's gone. If only he'd had some tact and humility......

it is the responsibility of a coach to bring together the team, no matter whether the team is thin-skinned, hero-worshipping, neurotically sensitive. tell me which team doesnt have differences? no team is immune. to confront the indian team without viewing the other side is totally barbaric and insane. kudos to the failed coach. pls dont justify anymore of chappell's acts.

Guys,

If any of your where in Chappel's place, would you have been sane enough to stay in India & ATTEMPT to coach a bunch of no-goers after what happened to Woolmer after Pakistan's defeat.

Dav Whatmore, watch out - your life is at stake.

4 things to revive Indian cricket
1. Have a batting coach. An good ex-batsman (Indian or otherwise) will do.
2. Have a bowling coach who was actually a good bowler. The reason is simple - Only a bowler can help a bowler. Otherwise why do you think our bowlers go to bowling greats (Wasim, Donald etc)
for advice, if they are already being coached.
3. Have a fielding coach. I don't need to say anything about this.
4. Make the domestic cricket structure multi-tier like the English Premier League - complete with relegations and promotions every season. Only if the competition is good will you improve.

Unlike the more engaging and open John Wright, Chappell was intent on dominating his Indian charges - stamping his authority by any means necessary even craven duplicty. So colonial so anachronistic. This is the man who of course sanctioned the infamous underarm bowling incident -perpetrated by none other than his brother against a New Zealand team of which John Wright coincidentally was a member. Lovely great batsman he might have been but he was also a leader of men for whom ethics and morality were strangers

right on. Good bye Mr Greg. Few comments about coaching : If a player shows lack of form, its not coache's problem (Sehwag, Pathan, Kaif), if a player plays well its coach who changed his style. Does not make sense. Greg never clicked -- as a coach. It his job to understand players - seniors and juniors. SOme will be flexible, some will not. Dravid being the best batsman and very flexible (going up and down the order) still could not open the inning. VVS another best, could not open the inning. As one plays at a position for number of years, the flexibility goes away. Thats the law of the nature. So all this for the sake of team is just a theoretical 'talk'. A coach is who motivates not scares people. And I for one do not think SRT, VVS, Dravid need motivation.
As far Sanjay Manjrekar, he is sulking at the fact that he did not play 100 tests! All his comments are about retiring people ....hmmm sounds like sour grapes.
Good article. Greg is gone I am happy.

There are two different issues with Greg,the positive side is his knowledge,experience and expertise.I will not deny those goodies he has.The negative side is the way he is going on about doing his business,I do not want to go into details,but numerous conflicts could be found in his approach.
So out of the two sides of the same coin,the negative side is more dominant than the positve side.Based on which side is appealing to a person,one could always make an argument leaning one side or the other.But for me,I'm happy he is gone and glad this article weighs on the same side. And those who support him,you guys are just looking at the less dominant side of his contributions.Open your eyes please.

Greg Chappel no doubt is a hard task master and there is lack of both discipline and committment in the Indian team. However Greg chappel's methodology of nurturing the team was wrong and tactless. He had tried a whole range of youth players of whom players such as Dhoni, uthappa, sreesanth, munaf patel, Irfan pathan performed and were selected to the world cup team. Others such as Raina, Venugopal rao did not and hence there was no justification for them to be in the team.It was imperative to maintaint the right balance of experience and youth. Constant experimentation made the players insecure and some such as pathan deteriorated in their form.Chappel wanted to have overall control of the team which was not possible with senior players around unless he took them into confidence and involved them in rebuilding the team.

Another important fact was to build bench strength
and the team could have used a rotation policy to prevent burn out.Last but not the least the board is interested in making money. The plaerys should have ideally played more practice matches in windies rather than the home series against lanka and windies.

Why is that it is now all writers and non-writers want to write about Chappell, the Coach. Why was this not done before, why did this not happen when India won 17 games continuously chasing. It was the same coach, same methods, same outlook to playing cricket.

Why is that no one is analysing the players - senior or junior - who played in the team and lost. While all aspects of Chappell - including his communication modes - are being dissected, it appears no one is really bothered about the 11 people who actually lost the games. Why dont we analyse them? Why dont we make a honest assessment of who is worth playing for the national team and who is not. And only consider the ability, hunger and commitment to win as the criteria than past glory.

If we Indians had this ability to appreciate facts as they are, we would be more successful - not just in Cricket.

What Chappell tried to bring in was an element of professionalism, where a player is committed to excel and WIN and not just consider that it was his god-given right to be in the team. Our demi-god cricketers did not like that. AND OUR DEMI-GODS NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT DOWN TO EARTH. The sooner, the better. FOR INDIAN CRICKET.

Hey Mukul,

You sound paradoxical dude.
You say that we Indians are like that (which is true) when it comes to dealing with straight talk. Then you say you are delighted that Chappel is gone ...... hmmm .. weird !!!!

I guess you should stick to your area of expertise - which is fiction

Let's face it.Indian cricket won't change because of new captain,coach,desi coach,team of coaches overnight etc.

Mr.Tendulkar - your outburst was equally unprofessional like mr.chappell's emails.
there is a saying about "a guilty conscience". any professional would have responded to criticism positively. not cry in public about your holiness. your recent stats speak louder than your cries.

overall, i felt Greg's intentions were right.his methods were not. it was like coming down the track to whack a spinner for a six and getting bowled miserably.

My sincere request to all is to forget cricket for a while. there are better things to do.
surprising how a simple street game is feeding so many journalists,TV crew,commentators,corporates and some half baked bloggers!

Unbelievable.So many including, yours truly, still cannot stop writing about this. Back to Normal life guys. Indian cricket will wake up and start walking again. Let us leave sport just as it is meant to be..a sport.

Focusing on solutions, as a Paki guy...
Captain: Yuvraj Singh
Vice-Captain: Mahender Singh Dhoni
A tandem of 3 stakeholders: Bowling coach: Wasim Akram; Batting Coach: Sanjay Manjrekar; & the Captain Yuvraj Singh...in other words these three will have their core competencies as well as carry equal vote in strategy sessions...

I beg to differ from you here.It is because of people like you that we will continue to indulge in hero worship.Sachin and Saurav will continue to remain bigger than the team.If they were in the Australian,ganguly would have never made it and sachin would have been dropped 3 years ago. Please dont give bullshit about Wright producing results- it was because it was the golden period of India's batting.Sehwag had not been worked out,Dravid was at Mt.Everest,Laxman had not lost his silken touch and Sachin and Saurav used to come to the party when all hard work had been done.

Just accept that Indians(including me and you)don't like to be pushed out of their comfort zone.I believe it comes from the constant spoon feeding and baby sitting culture we have in India where until 25,we are always under the tutelage of our parents.We are used to feeling safe,protected.

Why dont you answer this question-For someone who has scored 25k runs in International cricket,has the great Master Blaster ever volunteered to open in tests which he so stubbornly craves like an arrogant child in ODI's?He always wants to do what he thinks is best for him-avoid the new ball in tests and therefore make 20 instead of 0 and bat through 50 overs in ODIs(where the ball doesn't do much and bowlers are restricted)to score a century against Bermuda.In spite of being India's best batsman,Dravid volunteered to open in Pakistan-I cant ever remember sachin budging from 4 in tests and opening in ODIs(after Napier) whatever the situation of the team,series,pitch,conditions anything.

I agree that his methods of communicating to the media were despicable but to think he did all this because he was an autocrat is even more.Any genuine attempt to change our set-up is bound to fail with senselessly sensitive people like you around.Go get your Wright to boot lick the lazy, indisciplined superheroes.How I wish all these were born in Australia-most wouldn't have even made the 2nd division team not for lack of skill but purely for lack of discipline,hard work, fitness and a rigorous work ethic.
All these are typical Indian attributes(including myself) which is why we find ourselves as a Third World country despite the enormous manpower and huge pool of talent,i

So much has been said about questioning someone’s attitude can only improve their performance. I strongly disagree! Take Sachin Tendulkar’s case for instance; about 12 years ago the then Indian coach Ajit Wadekar said that a successful coach should know how to handle the individuals. While some players needed a push from the coach while underperforming, Tendulkar needed the coach to hold him back. He went on to say that Tendulkar would burn himself out at the nets after a bad performance and as a coach he just had to say, ‘enough for the day’. Such was Tendulkar’s character and it had universally been accepted till Greg Chappell came into the picture. You can not question something and expect it to improve proportionally. Try questioning your wife’s chastity for the sake of improving you marriage! Yes, Tendulkar has not been playing well recently. That alone does not warrant questioning his attitude, unless he has not been trying enough. A reporter or a fan who does not know what goes on behind the scenes can question a player’s attitude based on their performance. But a coach’s duty is to design a solution to a player’s problem and support him implementing it.

A lot has also been said about not dropping Tendulkar while underperforming; the reality is that even though he was not meeting the expected standards there has been no one else to replace him. Look at his record in Ranji trophy matches (eg: the recent finals) and the Challenger Trophy matches. He is definitely one of India’s premier batsmen. He performs better than any other domestic players and that is why has been selected. Many comparisons have been made with the Australian selection process, but you should remember that Mark Taylor was dropped to be replaced by Mathew Hayden who has playing exceptionally well at domestic level for many years; Mark Waugh was replaced by Darren Lehman (domestic player of the year three years in a row before replacing Mark Waugh). Healy was replaced by Gilchrist, Damien Martyn was dropped when Steve Waugh came back from injury, and Mathew Haden was earlier dropped for Michael Slater who made a comeback after being dropped for Mathew Elliot. The list goes on and on. Now, can someone please tell who in Indian domestic scene is playing well enough to replace Tendulkars, Laxmans and Sehwags? Robin Uthappa showed some promise in the recent Challenger trophy games and went on to replace Sehwag (as an opener). Has he done enough to warrant his selection?

Yes, changes are required. But they are required at the grass root level to produce more talents. That is the only way Indian cricket can progress. That is how the Australians became number one (not just by replacing Mark Taylor and Mark Waugh). How about a cricket academy at national level to breed more talent at a younger age?

I'm confused about a few things here. Wasn't Chappel's letter to the board president leaked? Was it Chappel who leaked this letter, or someone at the BCCI? Its getting pretty messy, isn't it? There's always two sides to the story, a balanced view, rather than some inflamatory rhetoric from SOMEONE WHO HAS NO BUSINESS TALKING ABOUT CONTEMPORARY CRICKET would be welcomed with a bit more enthusiasm.

Chappel didn't have any hits? India successfully chased 17 times, a record, while he was coach. In Tendulkar, Ganguly and Sehwag (and to some extent Harbhajan) you can see the ugly head of politics and self preservation rising to the fore. These were players who just couldn't get going when the going got tough. That they are among the worst fielders in world cricket at the moment is no coincidence.

The team failed in the world cup, Chappel has accepted some responsibility. So did Woolmer when Pakistan failed. Do you also think Woolmer was a failure as a coach? Pakistan were crushed in England not so long ago.

Chappel had hits and misses. What Sanjay Manjrekar was trying to say was, we should learn from Chappel, not dismiss him and all his ideas. Because you always can learn from an experience, and like it or not, Chappel provided a few positives. Your disparaging views of your countrymen is depressing, from the "chauvanist subcontinent" in a previous article to stereotyping Sanjay Manjrekar. Perhaps that was your motivation with the title "Indians are like that", a feeble attmept to fit in with what you believe is the collective psyche.

Wow...I know I have been very critical of some of your blogs but Mukul, this is your best to date. Spot on and beautifully articulated.

Greg Chappell is a great batsman and captain but probably not the best coach "for India" during the 2005-2007 period. One needs to understand what his mandate is and priorities are to fullfill this mandate. Chappell was not hired to overhaul Indian Cricket, which by the way definitely needs an overhauling. He was hired to coach the team to win the world cup. If he thought that he could train a youthful team in 18 months to win the world cup within the Indian Cricket system of politics, regionalism, etc. he was completely flawed in his judgement. He bit more than he could chew. Instead, he should have tried to improve the skill set of the players who were there and first and foremost register a good WC record. After that, he could have drawn up a 5 year contract to even overhaul the system. No one would have challenged him.

But what he has done in the process of taking on ambitious and unachievable goals is cut open through the heart of indian cricket to show its ugliness - its politics, commercialization, Media Hyping, Hero-worshiping, etc. As Manjrekar pointed out he did not show a mirror, he actually showed an MRI scan of the cancer that has been growing in Indian Cricket. Not one but many.

Cricket in the 21st Century is going to be played by physically fit, strong, mentally tough and aggressively competitive players. If Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar can't adapt to it, tough luck - they need to go. A younger Sachin at 19 would have been able to adapt to the new demands of this game - First a good fielder and then a bowler or a batsman. But even a younger Ganguly, I doubt would have been a good enough athlete to make the cut. Same applies to Dravid. The future champion teams are going to be made up of Yuvrajs, Kaifs, Symonds, Rhodes, Dilshans of the world - Super athletic fielders who can also bat and bowl reasonably well. If India doesn't adapt to this 21st century cricket, it will fade away, like it did in hockey.

Chappell was the wrong coach for India at the wrong time. I think he might have been lot more successful if he had taken this job with India in 2015. India was not just ready for Chappell in 2005. But he is the best thing that happened to India to wake up and take a deep breadth and figure out a brighter future.

I think Greg quit at the right time. If so many sane people (assuming) can write bull-crap about cricket and coaching without knowing the next thing about them, imagine the reaction of all those fanatics who feel passionately about these issues and cannot control their feelings! then there is the mafia to deal with. The players are another bunch of neurotics because every time they fail with the bat, their homes are targeted by some fanatic group or other! (Is Dhoni returning back to India?) From all accounts Greg's tenure in india has been nothing short of the tumultous, and it would take an exceptionally brave person to risk staying on in a country like India (especially after Woolmer has been done in, apparently by some assassins hired by Indian/Paki bookies!)Whatever his skirmishes with the "seniors" in the Indian cricket team, whatever his personallity traits which are grating to Indian sensibilities, even India's poor showing at the WC, and whatever the bickering in the aftermath-I don't think these issues in themselves would lead to such an exit for a player who was a great batsman of his time. I think Greg is quitting because he fears for his life, and we can't blame him for that. I don't profess to have any special liking (or dislike) for Greg, but I think we should all pray for him, that he is not hunted down and killed by any assassins.

Very well written piece Mukul.
Succinctly brings out the fact that we as Indians tend to believe anything that is repeated often enough.
Many of us have agreed that Sachin's emotional outcry is nothing more than a sham and to see him now pull our emotional strings is quite a fall from grace for Sachin in our eyes. What is difficult to digest though, is that if all the Senior cricketers were disagreeable to Greg's methods and behaviour for over a year before the World Cup, why in heaven's name did they not raise their collective voices 1 year ago - that would have truly served India's interests.... Why wait till after the World cup has been turned into spectacle of the most unpalatable sort... That is quite representative of the Indian 'chalta hai' and 'thoda adjust karo' mentality...we don't see the long run impact to pre-empt events.
Hopefully some good will emerge out of this shake-up.

PS: Mr Nirbhay Singh - why do you read Mukul's articles with interest is you feel that its not worth your time. You had similar comments to Mukul's article on 29 March 2007. Could you please spare us the spleen in print. Thank you in advance.

Agreed with Mukul.

The worst thing about chappel is this "Harem Whispers" - very eloquent term. Looks like elder brother ian was also roped in to build up the pressure on Tendulkar.

about manjrekar - well he shares the mike with ian chappel, so I doubt he has the b.lls really to say anything otherwise.

we have a player like Srinath coming out in support of Tendulkar - even Kumble passed a snide remark about the chappel sms culture. These are players that have played a long time with Tendulkar.

Why do we believe some sms mongrel then?

I totally agree with u nayantha! it was truly a blessing in disguise that india chose a (so called) "high profile" coach. we would have been screwed big time if we had anything to do with greg chappel

A coach can guide you to what you should do, but you have to have the talent and eagerness to accomplish it! Blaming Chappell for the WC is like blaming a teacher for the failures of some untalented students! If the players are not performing well enough, you lose matches, and this is the hard truth that the Indians have to grasp amidst all the frustration.
Just play well not only in paper and home soil but also outside.That will be enough.

To start with India has to stop imagining that their team is better than they are. You simply can't win big tournaments without fast bowling depth. There's too much self aggrandising hype borne out of everytime India beats Bangladesh or Zimbabwe.
Secondly as an Australian I can say I was more than a little suprised when India hired someone as conservative and stiff-lipped as Greg Chappell for national coach. In Australia Chappell is most closely associated with his hugely unsuccessful tenure as captain - marked by the infamous underarm bowling incident, when he prevented New Zealand the opportunity to win a match from the very last ball of a game, by bowling an unhittable ball along the ground. That says everything about the guy. So in my mind the fault must rest with the BCCI for hiring a man who has never had a history as a top class coach. So what were BCCI thinking? Image over substance I'd suggest. Which perhaps describes a pervasive problem within Indian cricket - the Indian cricketers are all treated like Bollywood princes, which is great for the ego (not a dirty word the Americans tell us) but as far as cricketing goes - poor results speak volumes.
Furthermore some of that renowned Aussie candour leads me to write that the Indian cricketing psyche lacks that killer instinct. Perhaps it's the vegetarianism which dulls the fire - who do you want in the ring - a tiger or a cow? Or perhaps it's the convoluted ritual of traditional Hindu religious practice - not to criticise the sublime core of Indian spirituality - but to assay that there's an inordinate preponderance of stultifying ritual in Hindu religious practice - which has the effect of producing a society of great Yogis and philosophers - but poor athletes and cricketers.
I've spent alot of time in India and everywhere you go kids are playing cricket, whereas in Australia you seldom see people playing. So what's the difference? The difference is that white Caucasians are for the most part warriors and kshatriyas, whereas Indians are a little weaker and more intellectual. Does that hurt? Well a society that can produce a Gandhi's nothing to be ashamed of. Of course I'm generalising and each society contains exceptions, but challenge me, is it not a salient point?
You write the Bhagavad Gita, produce a thousand enlightened saints every generation, and have a third of the Worlds' poor. And we'll live in atheistic ignorance, but win the world cup and have a better quality of life than anywhere in the World.
Of course I'm being ironic.

I feel that it is alright to be straight-forward and open as a coach, but the most important thing is that you must be flexible as a coach and give the players the freedom to make the decisions and work according to their style.

I feel that Greg Chappell was very inflexible and wanted the players to think like him and follow exactly as he said. I think that Greg Chappell was a control freak, unlike John Wright, who was a gentleman and respected the ideas of the players!!

It is a well known fact in man-management that every individual has his/her own style of working. Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvuraj, just look at them, they are all different individuals and each have to be treated differently!!

As a boss, you have every right to criticize your sub-ordinates, but you should do it in such a way that people accept your criticism well!! In that aspect, Greg Chappell was a bad boss, even though he knows more about cricket than many people in this world!!

Take for example Ganguly, when Ganguly was having a bad run of form, he could have softly talked him out of the captaincy and asked him to play like the other players in the Indian team!! But, he got angry with him and told Ganguly that he did'nt deserve to be playing in the team and that he is bad in all disciplines of the game!! Ganguly, an emotional guy, got angry and spoke to the media about his differences with Chappell, resulting in the famous spat between the two!!

I think that is a lesson in man-management for Greg Chappell, which I dont think he would ever accept if someone told him about it!! But, in the end he made a good decision and resigned before being asked to by the BCCI. I think that Greg Chappell's resignation from his position as the coach of the Indian cricket team is one of the best things that could happen for Indian Cricket!! Thank you Greg Chappell, you tried your best, but you just could not do your job well!!

Mukul, you seem to have on lost it completely. From a perceptive cricket observer, you have come to this pass, a paanwaalah would argue better. When you say that Chappell, have you bothered to look at statistics? In 17 years Tendulkar says nobody has questioned him on his commitment. If nobody has questioned him till now, it goes to show the kind of coaches we had in the past. This from a character who resorted to whining on getting stranded on 194 against Pakistan when Dravid declared.
And you clame to be a historian. Spare us your humbug.

I think in order to be a successful coach, one has to mould himself to the local conditions. John Wright the previous coach of the Indian team got adapted and worked within the boundaries and was pretty successful. Greg cannot use his Australian ways to coach an Indian team. In order to be a successful coach, one has to gain confidence of the team thru' good inter-personal skills. There is no doubt that Greg is a respectful person and might be good in his techniques with the knowledge & experience he possesses, and that is why he was selected as a coach for one of the richest clubs i.e, BCCI and he was supposed to work with a team who are like omnipotent.

There is no doubt the Indian team is more like a paper tiger, with lots of personal records but no show in the crunch situation. BCCI, a filthy political organisation with the top management capable of doing anything to hold on to the chair while giving a damn to the country's dreams & aspirations. And they are in that position because of the fanatic Indian people who will forget everything whatever has happened in the world cup once the Indian team goes to the next trip to Bangladesh and where these paper tigers hit a few sixes in style and then dance around Bollywood babes. Also since no other sport is encouraged nor the government is bothered to encourage as the priorities for them are shown as food, water, shelter and taking bribes, the Indian public has no choice but to watch cricket. Also with the growing economy the hungry Indian companies involved in dog fight to get their products more noticeable have only Bollywood actors and these cricket paper tigers who have mass appeal, careless about their performances. As soon as the team returns after the successful Bangladesh and Kenya stints, they will again enter into mega deals with these cricket heroes, whose contracts were recently terminated due to poor show in the world cup. But that is India for you Ian and Greg. And u cannot change this within a year or two. Currently for Indians hitting a few huge sixes is more important than winning a match in Dravid style. That is why, Tendulkar is more popular than Dravid, because even though Dravid is a match winner, Tendulkar had hit more sixes in Sharjah against arch rival Pakistan. Tendulkar is like a brand ambassador for India and if anybody says something wrong about his attitude Indians will feel very bad even though he has hardly won any matches as far as my recent memory goes. Also poor Tendulkar cannot resign now becos he is committed to all these Indian advertising companies who has invested heavily on him for the next few years. Please accept my heart felt sympathies to you Tendulkar. I couldnt imagine where Indians would have kept Ponting with the way he is consistently playing since the last few years. I think Indians would have surely erected a Ponting Temple.

So Ian and Greg Chappell, its a sheer waste if you try to employ the aussie tactics in India, where the baggy green is respected more than any individual player. Where hitting sixes is part of the match and records just happen. Where mental & physical toughness is given more weightage than dancing and partying skills with Bollywood actresses. Where winning each and every match is more important than displaying wins against minnows. Where winning is a habit than pot luck.

Just because Chappel talks "straight" does not mean we cling on to each and every word he says! He has left the team in utter chaos. I am so happy that he is gone - hopefully, we will recover from this dark period and rise to the top 4 again.

And why are most of us so eager to criticize the "Indian mentality" and praise the thinking of foreigners (the white man)? I am not saying we are a perfect people, but come on, give yourself and your country men some credit. Have some confidence in yourself in the ability of India as a country. Don't be a white man's bootlicker...please!!!

Shame on you for writing such an article.What prrof do you have greg chappell leaked news to the media.Even if he did is he worse off than politicians like ganguly in the team who want to stay in the team at any cost irrespective of the country wins or not?One person and only one person is responsible for India's present state of affairs.He bought in politics into the team and now everybody is just following that.

All this talk about our players being heros and Gods...they don't ask for this status. Its the people who elevate them to that status. We are willing to invest so much time and money in cricket - well, naturally the cricketers are going to be rich and famous. We do not invest as much money in other sports, so Indians who excel in other sports are never as famous as the cricketers (eg. Geet Sethi, V. Anand, L. Paes etc.)
Its the same with those bloody bollywood stars. We make them stars. They don't come to our doorstep, asking for stardom.
So if you don't want our cricketers to act like GODS, stop being so obsessed with the game. Enjoy it like a sport, and nothing more...

How nice of you to project another Indian stereotype - blame the foreign coach for our failures. The team is a bunch of has-beens (Tendulkar, Harbhajan, Sehwag), and never-have-beens (Dhoni, Zaheer, Pathan, ...), lets just accept that and learn to live with it. With Tendulkar lacking the grace to accept his own mortality (hes even begun speaking out, a sure sign that all is not well in that feeble head), I dont think there's much scope for improvement.

It is sad to see the decline and fall of your cricket writing. What is surprising is the suddenness of this decline. The disappointment is acute because I was so looking forward to reading your forthcoming book.
You sound like you are burning with jealousy that Chappell sms'd some of your colleagues, but not you.
Instead of praising someone who had the guts to question the demigods of India - The Tendulkars, the Gangulys, you chose to denigrate him. Please look into your history notes and see how many match winning knocks some of these superstars played for us. Check cricinfo's statistics provided by S Rajesh.
You want someone to continue keeping Tendulkar on a pedestal and perform puja? Did you bother to notice Ganguly's strike rate against the worst teams in the world in the world cup?
Mukul, you need a holiday perhaps to restore your balance. Cricket writing is taking its toll.

Hi all,
I totally agree with Sanjay M. He summarized it in a very good manner. Also if I can recall Sanjay M. was the first to point out that Sachin is playing self innings and is not match fit as he used to be. I think the lesson that this world cup have taught that it is time for the Indian fans to become realistic and accept that our team is not great, was never a great and might not be a great one. I personally now on will not cheer for any indian cricketer but will cheer everytime india wins a game.Our cricketers have become self obsessed. It is okay to make money but not by making mockery of yourself and the country you represent. Also I do remember BCCI once saying that indian team is representing BCCI and not India. The message is loud and clear for everyone now. Also one noticeable thing is non of the indian player(ex or current) have paid tribute to late Bob Woolmer. Now it seems like indian cricketers have lost their touch of humanity also.(That is why I like Steve Waugh for what he has done in Calcutta and Saurav eventhough he distributes money there).

Greg is out and we will forget the whole thing in couple of weeks. Now we are in 21st century and the game has changed entirely, we have to become accustomed to the new conditions. If you can’t play and win matches than go home and play with your kids, don’t do politics.

I respected Sachin, Saurav, Bhaji, Shewag, and Yuvi but these guys planned to bring down Rahul by not playing. We all know how these 5 played against Sri Lanka in the qualifying round. Rahul supported all the captains but in his term all the big guys played him.

Here we all have to remember is we are Indians not Bengali’s, North or South. If some one is not playing kick them out just don’t support them blindly. Sometimes we are behaving like India - Pakistan hating other state players and roaring for Ganguly.

I absolutely agree with you that the whole idea of Chappell being some kind of "straight-talker" and the Indians not being able to handle the truth, is nonsense. John Wright was a straight-talker as well, but he never rubbed anyone the wrong way. Remember the collar-grabbing incident of Sehwag, that was recently revealed in his book? That incident would have been gobbled up by the Indian media, but it wisely wasn't publicized. John Wright stood by the players 100%, and he never was too keen on talking to the media. Chappell, on the other hand, was out telling tales about the players to media whenever India lost. Indian cricket will not miss Greg "Mr. Underarm" Chappell.

Finally, I am so relieved someone wrote this about Mr Chappell. Many of us have known it all along that he is a terrible coach. He was a failure in Australia and he has been a failure in India. People seem to be confusing different issues. The debate that Tendulkar should retire now or five years from now has nothing to do with the evaluation of Greg Chappell as the coach. Not many people including Mr Chappell would have said before the world cup that Tendulkar did not deserve to be in the team or that the team selection was a total fraud. Whatever may be the circumstances, Chappell was not able to get the best out of it. Not even close.

In summary, Chappell is a big failure as a coach in management side, big hit in cricketing side. He is just too good to be handled by so called great players.. lion at home only.. He should quit as a coach, but it does not make any change to india cricket who are still biased with seniors and record!

Mukul, whatever may be your opinion about Chappell, does not cchange the pshyche of our SUPERSTARs. A quick insight reveals that they were more themselves on the field & seemed to play out expectations of others. Egs. One star has live upto the expectation of many ex-cricketers & score upto 50 centuries & is supposed to have another 5 years of cricket in him (just forget the past few years performance) The years can come any time.
A second star has to prove to many that he has INDEED made a COMEBACK, leave alone how much time he has to spend on the crease to get his runs. A third star has to justify his captain's support. A fourth star (rising star) has been compared to Gilchrist. The captain, until he became one, was the best team man to have & THE vital cog to many a victory. But unfortunately does not have the support of the performances of all stars. Chappell has been correct in pointing out some stark realities, however crude his actions may have been.
But who has ever heard of GODS being on the losers side. Public memeory is short. Superstars will soon become Super Duper stars,with the stigma of the Indian loss attributed to Chappell & his ways & not to the inability of the stars to put their heads down & score 250 plus runs in 50 overs.

First, let it be clear that the coach is not responsible for India's ignonimous exit. Lets not link up the two and hence attempt to cover up the real problems ailing Indian cricket.

On the coach issue, the same people who are berating Chappel today were overjoyed at his selection two years ago. Noone bothered to look back at his record as a coach in Australia. Mr Kesavan is also proving himself to be a typical Indian - one who joins the "haay haay" gang after having nothing to say when the selection was made. Kapil Dev has made the most perfect comments on this whole matter on television. If there were question marks over Chappel's ability, why pick him in the first place ? He was chosen because the team wanted him.

Lets not play blame games here. The key thing is to improve Indian cricket and for a start, its hightime we had two different teams and captains for tests and ODIs. We need good athletes, people with strong minds and lower egos for the ODIs. The Gangulys, Tendulkars and Dravids can shine in the Tests while let fresh faces come into the ODI team. Some tough decisions need to be made.

This is not just about the coach, its about Indian cricket.

The fundamental principal behind having a coach is to challenge ourselves to become better than we are currently. Winning does not come from a coach but rather comes from players who feel dedicated and accountable to their own performance in a team. Sachin may feel that he is dedicated to the Indian team, but is he accountable? I am not trying to single him out, but the fact remains that many players, with lucrative endorsements from their sponsors, do not really have to excel but merely be on the squad.

The problem than, lies in the fact that does India want someone to hold their players accountable to themselves and the nation, or does it simply want to accept status quo?

Based on the responses I have seen on this blog so far, it seems like the Indians are leaning towards the latter. Our collective attitude of rejecting the image when someone holds a mirror to our face is precisely why Indian teams will continue to struggle for foreseeable future.

What this nation really needs is a 'Kick in the Ass," and not mere 'Idol worshipping!'

Greg tried to deliver that kick in the ass, but it is clear that the nation is not ready! My hope is that the next Indian coach will continue to deliver that kick in the ass and not be a mere pawn!

I will miss Greg’s coaching abilities!

Manjrekar, in his assesment of Greg Chappel's tenure in India, eloquently said that he (Chappel) held a mirror to Indian cricket. I agree.

However, instead of letting the reflection on the mirror speak for themselves, Chappel strikes me as a person who kept saying, "Did you look at the mirror? Hahaha..you are so ugly!"

India in the next year or so will need to undergo Liposuction surgery to get rid of the excess. All the while, the new coach will have to hold the mirror and instill the self-confidence needed to get back to the business of playing cricket.

At least someone has sanity in India, to spot the truth behind all the happennings. I really didn't agree with SM's view. There was time when I use to really respect Manjeraker's view but since sometime he has become over critical. I don't know may be he is jealous of Sachin's popularity and success, I though this becasue he is really critisized Sachin badly. Anyway I think exit of GC is a good thing hapenned to Indian cricket.!!

Dead right. Chappell was the worst thing to have happened to Inidian cricket in years. This was a guy who spent more time sending nasty SMS bad-mouthing his own players to his coterie of sycophantic journos than on the motivation and the man-management of team India. Kesavan's article is dead right. As for Chappell's image as a straight talking Aussies will say, "Good riddance to bad rubbish." And he can take his equally conniving elder bother Ian with him.

People condemning Chappell just don't realise what he was trying to accomplish:
1. Make india a better fielding side.
2. Replace non-performing senior players with younger ones who could atleast field well with the hope their primary skill (bat/bowl) also would be better than the senior player he is replacing.
3. Push the senior players to play better and get them out of the comfort zone (instill a fighting attitude, play positive cricket rather than defensive, playing well against good opponents, batting well under testing conditions etc). It is here that our 'batting genious' is making a hue and cry. We all know how he has been performing over the past 2/3 years.

Is there anything wrong in any of these Chappell's agenda?

If you still criticise Chappell, ask yourself what is he going to gain by sticking to his principles and not budging to the pressure from senior players? - Nothing but lose his job.

When you try comparing Chappell with John Wright, you should also look how badly India played against Pakistan (Apr/May 2005) just days before John Wright quit, because that was the team that Chappell inherited.

Don't keep comparing the Indian team under John Wright that made it to the finals of 2003 WC to this one under Chappell. Many teams have improved dramatically in fielding. Australia keeps redefining the batting (see how they target best bowlers from the opponents for special treatment - Shaun Pollock got hammered due to his accuracy, but was too hot for india to handle in SA).

Any coach who inherits this messy team will not fool himself into trying to take on the senior players even for a good reason anymore. He will just go with the flow, and the senior players will be one big happy family beating only teams like Kenya, and occasionally Bangladesh (remember Sri Lanka used to be a punching bag for indian team not too long ago).

It is surprising how many folks have written here that Tendulkar needs to be dropped. And get whom, Tendulkar might not be the best in the world, he might not be the best in the country as well but I would be surprised to see a list of 5 batsmen better than him. Once we have that we can drop him. It seems our best bets are Kaif, Mongia and Raina. Not quite sure any of them are ready to replace Tendulkar. Even if Tendulkar played for Australia and they had our bench strength, he would still be playing. Not performing to potential is not good enough reason to be dropped. Lets find a better batsman and then drop him.

Also I am surprised that all the so called supporters of a "new direction" to Indian cricket are against Chappel leaving. Just as players need to be dropped for not performing, coaches also need to be. And Chappel did not perform. Others might be at fault as well. But the fact of the matter is that none of his bets, Raina, VRV Singh or RP Singh worked. And good players like Pathan went to bits. So based on the australian logic, he should be fired. Thankfully he has quit. ANd guess what there are many other options with better track records, Whatmore, Moody etc etc

these egos cannot digest chapell's advice

The whole of India is making the exit of India as grave situation to the cricket world just like how George W. Bush was able to change the world after 9/11. Both hilarious, a great time waster (as both the situations are relatively going to remain the same or if not worse!) and actually beoming rather annoying!

It is interesting to see the same old Indian story. The Indians are at their best when not on the field. Blame Chappell for everything but here are some plain facts:

1. Many of the Indian players are playing international Cricket for more than 10 years!
2. Both the matches India lost in this WC were one-sided. None (except perhaps Dravid!) put up even a fight!
3. Indian fielding is perhaps the worst amongst all the teams and in the ODIs fielding is of utmost importance. It is a shame to see Indian professional Cricketers (?) are allergic to fielding while teams like Ireland or Netherlands (the so called weekend Cricketers) field much much better!
4. The amount of Cricket played and followed in India is "n" times it is played and followd elsewhere in the world!
5. The Indian Cricket board (BCCI) is the one of the richest sporting bodies in the world.
6. India has a lot of first class teams at the domestic level and indeed a domestic cricket system in place (contrary to what Mukul says!). If you compare the infrastructure and the resources available to Indian Cricket to that of the West Indies in the seventies when they produced some of the all time greats of the game you will get my point. Even Pakistan in the eighties and nineties produced Cricketers of highest class without having a well established domestic system.

So please do not give reasons and accpet the fact that Indians were never world beaters in the game of Cricket (and for that matter in any other team sport)! If a couch doubts the attitude of a player, the best way to respond would be to go out in the middle and let your performance talk. Had the Indian players showed the same aggression against the opponents on the field as they are showing against Chappell......things might have been quite different.

Sanjay Manjrekar has become over critical of everything happening in India cricket forgetting that he was a product of the same domestic set up that churned other greats from his own state team who also gave us Sunny, Sachin and yes his own father who was known as Rock of Gilbratar. And he now says Chappell to eb a mirror of Indian cricket ? Can some one explain that what the new fad about mirror is ? Ian Chappell says mirror, SM says mirror!!!! Wow!!!

John Wright never SMSed team details to his fav journos, never openly critisized his players (except a few occasions when it was necessary -- the Sehwag issue in 2002 Eng tour), he never had any attitude problems, he had same agenda which Chappell promised in his presentation..But he did his work with dignity and beign a low profiled coach. Greg was not like him. He created insecurity among his own players.

No coach in any form of the game would behave in this way. There is a decent way to put across your message to the team. And all this talk of Aussie way and straight talk, in your face attitude is all rubbish and crap. Which other Aussie coach does this ? Moody or Bennett King ? Or John Buchanan ?

If there was one mafia in the team, then it was the coach himself....And evaluating coach is no way related to merits and demerits of having Tendulkar in the team. And teh likes of Manjrekar who say that he faked his injury to play or is more selfish than ever, should peek in his own achievements as an Indian cricketed ? Just 37 tests and a touch above 1900 test runs dont stand chance to 10800 runs and 136 Tests. What is contribution of Mr Manjrekar to Indian cricket ? Its zilch except that 218 in Lahore test way back in 1989. And since then he has always struggled to hold his place in Indian team.....Guys like him should shut their mouth. And if they still speak, then that wud be for their publicity.....Cmon Sanj, tell us one contribution of you to Indian crickeeet -- as a player, as a coach, captain ? Let us know......I am afraid to say you shud go to a mirror and ask yourself "Am i good enough to comment on Indian team? ". The mirror would seriously laugh on you big time and ask are you kidding ?

So much said about Greg chapell and his pyrotecniques. Agreed! He is a poor manager and bet that he wouldn't make into a MNC as one.
But as some one pointed out, it looks like the god fathers of cricket are already aiming the wrong bird to kill. Unfortunately, the focus is just on the coach and the captain ( i must say here that some of the electronic media,specially news chanel are adding fuel to the fire). The real issues are beyond this. It is about the attitude of some of the players who consider themselves among among the billion, It is about those greedy wolves(read BCCI officials) at the helm of affairs in Mumbai, it is about the Cola companies and few others like them, finally it is about us the people of the country..Think hard and you will realise why...
Yes! It is upto us to set the system right..by just ignoring these inflated dummies( read indian cricketers) will go a long way in achieving this..

I have no problems with Mukul's views.But also think that the seniors in this team are overrated and given the value of their endorsements,have stopped playing for the country a long time ago.They play only for themselves and strive and intrigue to keep their place and endorsements alive.I f you think thats not an objective view,go over their records over the last two years and most players (including the 'why is nobody feeling sorry for us' crybaby Sachin )wouldnt even make a club team overseas.So let Chapell go but let the'seniors'perform or perish.Also,someone needs to investigate how much say do the sponsors of the BCCI have in team selection.

I quote Geoff Boycott:

"I dont want to be the coach of the Indian team. Whatever happens, the coach gets the blame and gets sacked."

I guess the same would have happened to Chapell, even if he did not resign.

Now my comment: I am a Sri Lankan. The Indian team almost always had better bowlers and batsmen compared to the Sri Lankan team. However, they very rarely worked as a team.

With disappointment comes anger, with anger come hate and thats where INDIA is at present. Sure the team had bad world cup and in ODI enviorns, all one needs to is have a bad half day at office. Problem with India and its public, they tend to go overboard with their cricketers, with huge endorsements surrounding them they end being Demi gods. Whose resposnible? you the indian public. Secondly, dont forget that India were featured in the group of death as reffered to by many, and when was this group decided? nearly two years ago, so Is Greg Chappell responsible for positioning India in this group ? no its the players who had chartered that fate? and Why not hold John Wright partly responsible?

The same fate could have befall Sri Lanka, but if that were to happen i doubt if players homes and effigies woudl be attacked? Cricket is a sport and there will be a winner and a loser, and in teh case of India, and historically since of late, they are bad losers, not the players but the public, and they liek to find a scapegoat to loathe on and why not Chappell to take the fall.

Wasnt Chappell apppinted and selected by the experts themsleves should they not be taking a share of blame? instead they sit again to decided the fate of India? Why is it that now people find Chappell leaving as GRBR?

Well to India with love, Even if you have the best of coaches, best of support staff, it will not be enough if the 11 men taking the field are: one: realise its a team game and not crave for individual survival, two: accept that one needs skills and competitve advantage to defeat another team and not a team with statistics, three: start winning matches away from home on a consistent basis , thats why Sri Lanka are ahead of them, four: public should be educated to accept that its only a sport and winning and losing is part of the game. Five the players themselves should be focused on Cricket and not on the endorsements taht they intend to feature on? All these is beyond a coaches reach and I personally think Chappell is nothing short of hype which is closely associated with India.

All this will forgotten in a months time and India wins the next ODI in their own back yard, and nothing will be fixed when 2011 edition comes around, and losing to Bangladesh should be an expected outcome and not a disaster as they with the rest of the teams will be moving on and chaging with time, but India will continue to hold on to Statistics........only saving grace for the next coach is that teh world cup is in tehir own back yard and one only hopes that world will not see the shame and ugly side of Cricket similar to Calcutta 96! LEARN TO ACCEPT DEFEAT WITH DIGNITY and VICTORY WIHT HUMILITY AND MORE IMPORTANTLY....ENJOY THE GAME....

Mukul, I have no problems in admitting that Chappell is not a great coach. I have no qualms about putting John Wright well above him as a coach. But if you seriously think that he was the only thing wrong with Indian cricket, think again. Yeah, I know you touched upon Indian cricket structure but everyone knows that it is a problem. What about the seniors? What about players who do not want to move from their set positions no matter what the situation or their form is? What about senior players who think that just by ganging up, they can get rid of people they don't like? What about the age old syndrome of "old men's club" that has hauntd Indian cricket?

Do you seriously think that the fact that Laxman, Dravid, Sachin, Sourav and SEhwag were all a good 4 years younger (and fitter, I might add) had something to do with how well the team performed under Wright? Not for a moment am I trying to excuse Chappell's mistakes here. He had a problem that he took things personally. I am sure he felt guys like Raina were the ones to take Indian cricket forward and there is nothing wrong with that. But the way he went about trying to get rid of guys like Ganguly and Laxman was definitel wrong. But having said all that, what exactly was WRight able to achieve with almost the same team in early 2005? The team looked staler than ever, with the same guys playing the same way and we still kept losing. Changes were cosmetic, the 3rd seamer, or the 2nd spinner or the wicket keeper. The core coterie was untouched and THAT was the reason we were not doing well. We just didn't create a back up pool and were extremely dependent on the already picked 15. Chappell did manage to change that to an extent and he did give opportunities to youngsters with spark. It is not his sole fault that those guys didn't measure upto international standards. At least now, we know that our domestic guys can't be put in internationals straightaway and become instant hits, which is how some were hyping certain players.

The easiest thing to do today in Indian cricket is to bash Chappell and it is rather disappointing that you could not find anything more worthwhile to suggest to Indian cricket. Odds are that the men who matter might take a look at this site as well.

Whether it was because of the coach or for whatever reason the fact remains that the game has changed and is changing. It is becoming very physical. The Australians and Soth Africans by taking it to another level have proved that. To beat them once in a while may call for chest thumping but what matters is consistency over years and this comes from a strong body and mind. We have immensely talented cricketers but when the mind is not tough, performance is good only in good conditions and not in adverse conditions as we see our teams performance overseas. A combination of tough mind and tough physical shape can wear down the best of opposition in all conditions. We must realize that there are three pillars that make the modern cricketer, talent, tough mind and a tough body. Once we have a good mix of the above the coach and other factors will have less of a role to play.

dear mukul.
why this unstinting support for the inflated ego's?have you yourself become the fan who can't see any flaws in his heroes?
sachi has been a great player for several years,and still is in the longer version,but only fan blinded by hero worship would say that he still deserved his place in odi's. same is true for saurav.odi's are young man's game or those who can commit 100% to the rigors of keeping your body and soul on the job,like the australians and srilankans.
Our seniors didnot sign up to the Idea,They are above this menial stuff of descipline and effort.
And what does a foreigner know about we Indians anyway.Can't he see We did great in the 2003 world cup virtually with the same squad?How can we become bad in mere 4 years?Not with greats like Sachin,Ganguly Sehwag and Harbhajan in squad.We were going to walk the world cup,fit or unfit,feilding drills or not.
SO IT HAS COME TO PASS

I dont completely agree on a lot of peoples view that chapell was not a good coach. I think that a better Board is needed. We are one of the richest boards in the world for any sport and sometimes have incomes higher than the GDP of some small countries, but where does this money go? It sure doesnt go towards building new facilities or anythin useful to Indian cricket. Nowadays most international teams have specialist coaches for different aspects of cricket. My question is why dont we have a feilding coach. God knows we need one and how about a fitness coach too? Instead of paying players way too much than what they are worth invest money into getting these coaches and developing new facilities. The burden of coaching a sub continent team is hard enough let alone a sub continent team full of unfit and out of form players who have no desire to be on the field except for money. Things have to change and they better start changing now!

People questionning Tendulkar's "hit-back" at Greg should see their own mirrors. That guy has hear so much of criticism after every failure. For him it is like one failure and he is just standing on the missle of road and anyone and evreyone can come and hit him hard, but one this he is not allowed to say anything. Today when he speaks his heart after a gap of almost 17years, people are saying that he should mind his words. We don't need THE GREAT Sanjay Manjerekar (technicaly best indian batsman and worst ever player for india) view on this. Manjerekar himself was in team for that long coz of his own father. He is simply jealous, burnt and just want to pull down sachin. But he forgot one thing, Sachin has this cruel tendency to reply by his bat. He will come back---watch for him...I can bet!!

I have on thing i forgot to say and that is my opinon on Sachin Tendulkar and his recent statements. Well sir you are one of the greatest cricketers of all time, you have been likened to Don Bradman by himself, you are a grat person but right now sir you are a liability to the team and you must face it.

IN RESPONSE TO COMMENTS& MY OPINION:

1)Mr.Dey: you are absolutely right on one count Ganguly and Yuvraj rose to the challenge against Kenya and spared us the blushes however you have ignored the fact that POST W.C 2003 Ganguly had a torrid time both with the bat or as Captain: there were a string of defeats most notably losing to an inexperienced Pakistan in the ODI and drawing the Tests which we should have easily won. So the bottomline: the Ganguly-Wright combo was going downhill rapidly and the unfit/ underperformance of all the "seniors" was there to see most notably the Captain.

2)When Greg and Dravid combined they led India to record wins in ODI's although that was on home soil and against relatively soft teams.

3)Once again, when the true test came we failed: and we blame the Coach ! Arre baba please see S.Rajesh's stats analysis on CRICINFO and then talk- all bull- most critcs are talking without knowing the FACTS: WHINING LIKE SMALL KIDS ABOUT GREG'S sms' BIG DEAL! WHAT'S IMP? HIS SNEAKING OR INDIAN CIRCKET & HE HAS GONE - WHOM ARE WE GOING TO BLAME NOW?!?!.

These stats surprises of surprises tells us that Yuvraj was the best batsmen in foreign/ tough conditions and at home and whereas Kaif was pathetic at home he was the BEST PERFORMER abroad and against tough opposition. Tendulkar, Dravid,Sehwag & Dhoni were the WORST performers against tough team/ or foreign conditions!! So whom should you have taken for the premier tournament in foreign conditions and whom should you have dropped?!?!?

Yes Ganguly was the most succcesful captain and deserves great credit for being fearless and leading from the front and most crucially the team came together: Sehwag and Chopra/others managed to see the new ball off in the Tests in England and Australia which then allowed the middle order most notably the best batsmen in the world Rahul Dravid to prosper and pose or chase down imposing test scores, this then enabled the bowlers most notably the match winner Kumble to take 20 wickets and win games - ABROAD and against TOUGH opposition.

4)So what happened now? Sehwag failed as opener, the middle order including Tendulkar & VVS also had a very bad run of form and most crucially, Rahul Dravid wasn't making runs on whom team India depended the MOST to win games.

5)This then put pressure on the bowlers who did not have the cushion to operate with - given that our best strike bowler is a spinner who needs runs on the board to operate and the best proof of this is the Test we did win in S.A: surprise surprise S.A bowled out for 85 by a budding young Sreesanth (Greg's protege) and the resurgent Zaheer who had also learnt a lesson with the stiff kick in the rear he got from Greg!The BOWLERS won us that match with atleast a gustsy display by the batsmen the foremnost being again, a resugent Ganguly who had also received a stiff kick in the rear by Greg earlier and had come back stronger!

As Greame Smith accurately pointed out after that one win S.A batting came back stronger and in every innings in the next 2 tests posted a higher total than the Indian batting line up - result we lost both Tests - had the Indian batting performed even margianlly better we could have atleast drawn the series which would have been a land mark! Testimony to that is the sprited display of bowling by the Indians on the last day of the 3rd test where S.A had to really fight to win the series.Result ANOTHER LOSS -ABROAD AGIANST A TOUGH OPPOSITION.REASON:BATTING FAILURE!

And to all those championing VVS for ODI's?- in that crucial period of play where Tendulkar had dug in Laxman manages to be so nervous that he runs himslef out!!Had he stuck on with SRT and had we posted even 50-100 runs more we could atleast have a fighting chance of winning.In my opinion just for this alone he should be dropped till he improves his fitness for Tests but once fit he should be given every confidence and security to prosper because he is a class act.

5)Now to ODI's did you watch Eng vs S.L - what a thriller and who was responsible? two batsmen: a "senior" with limited batting capabilites at best and a "youngster"(only 5 ODI's): common denominator: the WILL & MENTAL STRENGTH to fight!And the "youngster" to my count must have saved atleast 3 boundaries while fielding. Dravid nonachantly says we have to put an extra 20-30 runs on the board because of our lack of fielding-wow! 191 agaisnt Bangladesh and pathetic fielding result- OUT of the W.C.what does this show - complete miscalculation by the Captain and posing faith in "seniors" who let him down(including his own performance!)Conversely,purely due to Fielding (Collingwood's stunner to get Vaas & Bell's amazing runout of Dilshan) enabled England a team with poor bowling resources (except Flintof)to restrict S.L to a good 25-35 runs less than what India managed.Result: just like Indian batting collapsed so did the English and they lost the game! So whom do you blame the coach?

So, my message to Mukul & His Band of Follwers: WAKE UP & SMELL THE ROSES.

India has a soft(?!?!)tour to Bangladesh and after that? Australia in an ODI in a nuetral venue and then? Foregin tour to a resurgant England. What does Pied Piper Kesavan and his band of ignorant kids propose we do - let's hear a constructive suggestion instead of all this soap - Shobha De type of masala drivel.

Wanna hear mine? For the ODI's:Only two of the so called "seniors" should be retained and that's Dravid and Tendulkar(Yuvraj is not a senior) for the ODI's and that too with a rider about performance and performance alone will count in the very near future.Luckily a tour to Bangladesh should provide similair practice to sort out the kinks what they would have got in domestic cricket (sorry Bangladesh and I will be only too happy if you prove me wrong but I am referring to playing conditions as well!)Mohammed Kaif should be the Captain. The bowling attack can remain the same except obviously Powar should be taken probably with Chawla as stand by.Gambhir, Karthick(w.c.) and Uthappa should remain thus team:
Openers: Uthappa & Gambhir, 1) (down): Dravid
2)Tendulkar 3)Yuvraj 4)Kaif 5) Kartick and then the bowlers with Tendulkar being the option to open.

The Test team will be easier and indeed "seniors" like Ganguly/ Sehwag/ VVS can have slots PROVIDED they are fit, hungry, humble and disciplined in other words - professional.

In the words of Atlee - let's wait and see what the BCCI comes up with.

And Mukul: please- better articles from you please - I know you have written some excellent pieces before. And to your "band" of followers :please watch/ analyse the game / read about it extensively and THEN comment constructively and objectively. To the Media: the same advise as for the "followers" but I doubt you all will ever change?!?!? As far as cricket is concerned most of you are immature, selfish, petty and can't see beyond your own noses especially if it has been rubbed the wrong way by a Greg Chappel!!!

All Best Wishes,

Nirbhay Singh.

well said..........even i'm very happy that greg chappell has gone. what is very irritating is the fact that respectable figures in cricket like Sanjay Manjrekar, Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram still think Greg Chappell did a good job. Maybe they are talking out of respect for Chappell as a player but as a coach.....chappell's credentials are nothing but zero......few would remember this is not the first time that Greg Chappell has left a cricket team completely destroyed.....the same thing happened at the end of his tenure with South Australia which left the South Australian team languishing at the bottom of the league.....Manjrekar says that he put up a mirror......i say what did he do to change those issues........Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram say that the blame should not goto Greg for india's debacle at the cup but yet they give him credit for India's winning streak while chasing and the sucesses at home......bt the question is if u give him credit then the indian public are fully justified in blaming him....lets not forget India reached the world cup final in 2003 under John Wright......what gets to me even more is when Sunil Gavaskar says that Dravid is a model captain.......the man has been nothing bt a dummy for Chappell on field.....Dravid lacks the backbone and the authority to lead a cricket team........don't get me wrong he's probably the best cricketer india has produced bt he is the worst captain I've seen in my lifetime.......in the 5 year reign of Saurav Ganguly and John Wright u never saw John Wright in the limelight he worked and worked very efficiently from the background, the perfect coach.........India need someone who cares abt Indian cricket and not himself......all Chappell did was play with the press to get ppl in his favour......India need a change.......India need an injection of passion........for me..........I'd love to see Viv Richards as the next coach if he's interested.......somethin tells me he can bring back the fun into Sehwag's batting.......bring back the old Tendulkar.......and get Ganguly's bat flowing again......however a bowling coach is also needed.......and so is a fielding coach

@ adarsh Tell me at least 5 players better than him in this Indian cricket team...I am telling you he will not need anyone's advice but he will quit himself. He might not be playing upto his potential but mind you he is still far better player than others...

Guys - what happened is a "Radio killed the Radio Star" scene. No body would be in a right frame of mind to perform whether it be cricket or anything for that matter if you are put under tremendous pressure. The pressure the Indian Public and the past cricketers turned commentators put the team under and the stoning of houses does not boost the moral of any individual.

I think Greg did a great job given the situation - Why not tell the board to go home. The main issue lies there - Common - you need the captain and the coach to be in the selection committee.

India had been to world cups, have lost more badly, had been thrashed by Australia/West Indies 5-0 in the past, still never a coach been in such controversy as before. We did have a foreign coach and hot headed guy Sourav as the captain, still John Wright was never in the news. There are flaws with media, Chappel, Rahul, BCCI clearly.

Englishman behave like gentleman but in fact are nasty over the back. Straight hard talk, Indians can't digest, cut the crap, that's all nonsense. Chappell’s e-mail said it was sourav who kept laxman out of the squad, where is laxman in the team. Does it mean sourav was right in keeping laxman out of the team or it was indeed chappel who kept laxman out of the team. This is utter Hypocrisy which was what Indians can't stand. Saying something in person and telling something on the back, situation of chappel saying sachin is a quality player on face and e mailing/smsing Hmmm! to keep his financial interests he is keeping the juniors out of the team.

Krish Srikanth is quite right in saying perform or perish, I'm sorry mate you're out. When you critically analyse Chappell’s term, 17 run chases - all in sub continent wickets though, first series win in west Indies- same period England/Australia thrashed them 4-0 and India managed only 1-0 in a four match series and lost the one dayers 4-1, First test win in south Africa- needed sourav to anchor in first innings after having lost one dayers clearly.

I'm not belittling his achievements but India's drawn test series in England, winning the Nat west with young kaif and yuvraj, almost winning the series against Aussies in Australia, final in a world cup with 8 straight wins in south Africa reads better than what chappel has achieved. If Chappel can belittle people's achievement everyone will belittle him including the fact that he was not even considered for australian coach job and his team south australia as a coach finished 5/6 in sheffield tournament and all players in typical English fashion were happy to see his back.

The sad bit is that we have a tendency to buy in to foreign starting from perfume to person. The trend in India was to appoint the under 19 coach, it stalled with Krish Srikanth, he identified all these youngsters as the future Indian stars as the under 19 coach, why not give him a go making him the coach and Kaif the captain in this difficult situation (won the ranji tourney for UP, won under 19 world cup, captained India B challengingly). The history is that great players don’t make great captains or coaches and why not give an average people a term (sourav/wright were successful but dravid/chappel & sachin/kapil were failures)

If there is anything we Indians are absolutely the best at, it is pointing fingers at people. However, the fact remains that the fans, media and some "former cricketers" who suddenly have become "experts" after they quit cricket have run the whole system to the dogs. And the facts are there to see. The media started the "emotional blackmail" business, when they went after coach, captain and anyone else they could lay their hands on about Sourav. The likes of Sachin have now learnt that this can be a very useful tool. But we will never face the facts - yes, a Sachin, Saurav, Sehwag will perform in one out of ten matches. But that is the kind of statistics which could be produced by any of the younger chaps. So, when you here the "former cricketers" going on and on about the Sachins and Sauravs being able to deliver, they are specifically referring to their batting abilities which have definitely gone down over the years. But what they seem to conveniently forget that cricket is not just about batting. Fielding is a major part and it is here that these people are a big failure. Not that I blame them for that - age does slow down people. But then, they should realize that and give up before it comes down to a situation where they have to emotionally blackmail the people. Anyway, we the stupid fans of Indian cricket will forget all that pretty soon and you will see the Sauravs and Sachins very soon blasting away at the Bangladeshi and Irish teams on Indian soil and then suddenly they will be "World Beaters" again. And again we will have some "former cricketer" "expert" saying "I told you so". It's sad that despite the pathetic performance at the world cup, every newspaper goes on and on about cricket on their sports pages and even the fact that we have a World No. 1 in chess is a mere column on one day which gets quickly forgotten. It's not the coach, captain, players or even the BCCI which have a serious problem - the serious problem is with us the "fans" and especially the "media" who think they know everything about everything and put undue pressure on everyone just to increase their "TRP" and circulation.

Disclaimer: I am happy that Greg Chappell is gone

Why? I advocated in my blog as late as last weekend that there should be no change as it would set us back. However since then, the situation has changed as journalists reveal Greg's SMS-es, news channels leak report from 'sources' and as usual Greg is quite. Which successful coach in cricket or any other game used the media to communicate to his players?

All on-field achievements of Greg Chappell have been lost because of his lack of self-discipline off-the-field. As a coach, the least you should do is stand behind your players, a trait never present in greg. He was not willing to re-think and towards the end came across as a uptight coach.

Greg, you should be gone because you are not worth the trouble off-the-field. You are the coach of the team and you failed to work with your subjects instead repeatedly asking for youngesters who never succedded outside India.

Chappell's failure is in the "here & now" but how much of it is done wilfully by the seniors was witnessed by all. GC's ultimate failure is that the whole scene blew up for the public's consumption but then that's what i'd have wanted in his place. He must have been appalled by the controll exercised by the seniors in the teams in all things pertaining to indian cricket - how the "boys" protect & fight for each other- witness how RD fought for Sehwag & Harbhajan to be in the team; how kumble back in 2004 in the series against australia that Parthiv patel is a class palyer and he played - he dropped the series for us, didnt he? It is time players stay away from selection issues. Sehwag & Harbhajan did'nt deserve to be in the first place and I'm sure GC's recommendations were overlooked by RD in this regard. It is appalling to note that even Tendulkar is in the game of manipulation - he must have chosen this route bcoz he hasnt performed in a while & this is the best way to hold on - what a sad situation. What all of ouy, the well informed journos should do instead is stop being in "viewspapers", instaed be objective in "newspapers". Or, better still, invoke the RTI act and for the benefit if us cricket lovers get the world to see the coach/manage/captain's report on the WC2007. You'd have done your job.

Cant agree with you more. The first statement Chappel had issued to the media was that he wont coach through the media. I am afraid that he ended up doing exactly the same.
Chappel did not realise, that in India, the culture being different, there are different type of relations between seniors ad juniors. I am sure the relationship would not have changed after Chappel came in. And this is the same team where juniors like Yuvraj, Sehwag, Bhajji etc and others thrived to be labelled as match winners. Its the way one handles the team rather than finding the mistake with cultures. And the most important role of a coach in any sport is man management, which Chappel didnt understand.
Sometimes one cant make drastic changes in the system. Any system which has functioned for ages in a manner cant be overhauled in a matter of months. Even companies which do M&A give their prized companies time to adapt to their systems rather than take the flavor away. Chappel didnt want to let that happen, he wanted it the Aussie way right from the beginning. The result was nothing but resistance. And resistance, like in electrical circuits, only can result in heat sometimes if not properly channelised.
The way Sehwag, Ganguly, Zaheer, Kumble were treated. Well, agreed they sometimes didnt perform to the mark, but then they were match winners. Rather than working on them, Chappel wanted them out. Well, if every player was dropped when he went through bad patches I wonder if we would see landmarks of 100 tests being crossed again in the future. The need of coach is to find the problem and sort it out, not change the problem with another. Another problem here being inexperienced.
Also, dont know if he had a knack of spotting talent. Not one, except Sreesanth, came and made his mark in the Indian team. The rest were all spotted and nurtured during the Ganguly-Wright regime.
If all the above reasons, were not enough to label the effectiveness of Chappel, I dont know what else is required.
No where do I feel that the Indian system is effective and players great. But the above summary, is just the impression I have on the Chappel way.

Mukul – thanks for the honest analysis. For long I have been frustrated by the attempts by the media and ex-cricketers like Sanjay Manjrekar and Ian Chappel to portray Greg Chappel as a straight talking person that calls a spade as a spade. How could you call a person straight talking when his primary mode of communication is by leaking compromising and confidential information through sms or emails. The reason he does this are two fold ,first the person he targets doesn’t have the opportunity to respnd, second if the plan backfires he could always disassociate himself with the leaked information. He is the kind of person who has shown on many instances how he can manipulate the rules be it on the cricket field (the one who advised his brother to bowl underarm against the spirit of the game) or off it. The worst thing that depresses me is that the same media which offers unconditional acceptance to anything Greg Chappell says does not give the same amount of credibility to our own players. I could not think of any player in the history of the game who could have carried himself without the slightest blemish in his entire cricketing career that our dear Sachin. It is debatable that Sachin may or may not recapture his legendary form but it is blasphemous to portray him as someone who stands in the way of the youngsters. No other cricket nation would allow their crown jewel to be derided by outsiders especially those with questionable morals. Coming back to Chappell & coterie, I can’t imagine the way they squeal and the way they belittle anything that relates to Indian cricket .Come-on – tell me which country has really won a test match and drawn a series against Australia in Australia ? The Indian players and the system are not that bad as Chappel and Manjrekar claim. After all it is the same set of guys who took India to the 2003 finals. I hope the media and the ex-cricketers are more responsible when they comment.

Mukul Kesavan has hit the nail on the head. It is embarrasing to see the likes of Manjrekar, Dungarpur, etc bowing to the "mighty sahib"-it just reeks of servility and sycophancy.
Also the unholy glee of the Aussie and British media at the Indian debacle is quite inexcusable-yes, the team played badly, yes, the players are a bit spoilt, yes, the coach alone is not to blame-but some of the opinions being bandied about fall just short of blatant racism.
I agree whole-heartedly with the author in feeling that we need to have more balance and self-respect-Indians have enough critics in this world-why should we ourselves add to their numbers?

//The Indian players and the system are not that bad as Chappel and Manjrekar claim. After all it is the same set of guys who took India to the 2003 finals. I hope the media and the ex-cricketers are more responsible when they comment.
///Mr Shiva--Looks like all your life you are going to bask on all old glories. Look at India's cricketing history..Given the money,hype,fame and popularity Indians never lived upto their reputation....We lost several several matches to pak in the 90s...We haven't won a test match outside the subcontinent for 20 yrs until greg came in.Does this talk abt the quality of our team...When a team can't win a match away from home what do u call that team...I would suggest the indian public raise the standards of the game and not follow the misleading statistics of the players and team on home pitches....Greg has woken the whole indian cricketing fraternity from their slumber...

I keep reading comments which ascribe Chappell's failure to come to terms with Indian culture, as being his main failure. That in itself speaks volumes for our culture. I mean are we really saying that since our cricketing culture has been somewhat flawed - always had room for egos and selfishness, then it is something which has to be lived with forever?! Surely the more serious and long term approach would be to slowly eke out the problem from within the system. The operative word of course is slowly, and perhaps Chappell will have better luck in instilling the values and ethics of "playing for the team" to his charges at the NCA. That being said one must also call a spade a spade. Tendulkar's current statements coupled with his press conference after Dravid declared on him at 194*, should not go unnoticed. He was once a team player, but currently he seems more taken by personal milestones.

Again coming back to our "culture" - well, I guess when one is a 13 year old schoolboy, there is room for an opener to hope that his partner fails - BUT it is a culture that belongs to a 13 year old mindset and no more. The 13 year old mindset might also sometimes harbour delight when his team loses under a peer's captaincy, but again it is but a 13 year old mind. Unfortunately we do nothing to stem these thoughts from becoming obsessive indulgences in ones own ambitions, and hopefully Chappell, should he take the NCA offer - will be able to straighten out young minds, and help them look beyond the "self realm".

In the mean time though, we need to take a hard look at our cricketing system, the cricketing ethics, and our cricketers. To begin with we must get rid of players who play for themselves, and only then for the country. BUT even beyond that - we first must take some serious cacion against players who play the game of politics and factionism within the team .... One name comes easily to mind - a master of disguise, and it seems a good one at that - Saurav Ganguly. Get rid of him and see how improve .... we did after all set a world record in terms of successful run chases in history in ODI, and we wona Test series in the West Indies. Should a team player like Dravid start to point out all his successes, perhaps he too will come across as the saviour of Indian cricket!!!!

Right! It must have been Chappel disguised as these Indian heros who couldn't hit, bowl or field worth peanuts against Bangladesh or Sri Lanka on the field. He must have also cast a spell so paralytic that when it was time ro really produce, these world beaters could only stand transfixed and shake in their boots. He must have surely encouraged Saurav Ganguly to bat at a pace of a-run-an-over, motivated Sachin Tendulkar to get out for a duck in a must-win situation, congratulated Mahendra Singh Dhoni on putting Sachin Tendulkar to shame and coached Rahul Dravid and the entire team to collectively soil their pants when the pressure was on.

If there is any blame left, it must surely be put on the Indian fans....nikamma public with their unrealistic expectations of their team beating Bangladesh and at least getting to the next round...don't they realize that puts too much pressure on these cricketing legends? Gosh-darn-it! When will these idiotic fans and delusional coaches realize that these Indian players are God's gift to the sport of Cricket and be treated as such.

Mukul, you've hit the nail right on the head. However, there was a lot more that you could have said but didn't:
1.Those who say that coaches have only a minor role in team performance need to tell us why then should we pay them $175,000, a princely house and god-knows-what-other perquisites.
2. If they do in fact have a role, Chappell must be called to account. He took a team that, despite all that was supposedly wrong with our cricket before him, had reached the finals of the World Cup and beaten Australia in Australia and Pakistan in Pakistan and destroyed it in morale, technique and performance.
3. Coaches are supposed to spot the weaknesses of teams and individuals and find remedies. Our most obvious collective weakness was the vulnerability of our batting on any pitch that offered the slightest help to seam and swing and bounce. The cure too is well known: continual practice on such wickets. Let no one suggest that we cannot produce such wickets in India: look at Mohali or indeed at the Nagpur pitch that the Vidarbha groundsman produced for the Australia match under the instructions of Shashank Manohar (when the latter was eager to discredit Indian cicket). Chappell could have demanded such pitches and made his team play on them day in and day out.
4. As for individual batsmen, there was no one who improved under his tutelage. Great batsmen often develop minor technical flaws which coaches are supposed to detect and advise them about. Sachin's and, indeed, Rahul's weakness against the incoming ball, Rahul's tendency to fish outside the offstump early in his innings, Sehwag's aerial slashes square of the wicket were all curable deficiencies that Chappell did nothing about. He may even have encouraged them in order to call for their heads when they failed. Irfan Pathan was a potential match-winning bowler whom Chappell destroyed. During these 22 months, only two Indian cricketers improved their techniques, Sourav and Zaheer, in both cases thanks to their absence from Chappell's baleful orbit. Revealing, isn't it?
5. No coach can command his team's respect and loyalty without personal integrity and character. Chappell instead chose to be a master manipulator, leaking e-mails to the media, slyly attacking his wards behind their backs, undermining their confidence whenever he wished them to fail so that he could replace them with players whom he favoured. What else could be exoected of a captain whose most notable achievement was the underarm ball that he asked his brother to bowl at a New Zealander so that he could not be hit for four? Indeed, the abiding image of Chappell as a coach is his one-finger salute to the spectators on the occasion of his team's debacle against South Africa at the Eden Gardens.
6. India is not the first team that Chappell destroyed. His only other ccoaching assignment was with South Australia and was equally disastrous. I do not believe any other cricket board will be stupid enough to entrust their team to such a character. Good bye, Mr Chappell and may we never see you again.

1-DIFFERENT GAMES SHOULD BE PROMOTED IN INDIA
WHICH ARE AFTER WORK GAMES LIKE FOOTBALL
2- LEAVE CRICKET FOR RETIRED PEOPLE TO PLAY.
THIS GAME IS BAD FOR PRODUCTIVITY.
3- SOME INDIANS HAVE HYPOCRITICAL THOUGHTS THEY NEED TO CHANGE THAT.START ACCEPTING LOSS BEFORE
YOU CAN WIN.WORLD DOESNT START FROM INDIA.
4- FACE THE TRUTH TREAT GAME LIKE GAME FOR FUN
NOT LIKE THIS IS END OF THE WORLD
5- UNLESS INDIANS CHANGE THEIR HYPOCRITICAL THOUGHTS.THEY WILL NEVER WIN WORLD CUP IN CRICKET
AND THEY WILL ALWAYS HAVE 1 OLYMPIC MEDAL BY
SOME ARMYMAN
6-IF INDIAN TEAM AND BOARD HAD LISTENED GREG CHAPEL INDIAN TEAM COULD HAVE GONE FAR IN THIS BOARING GAME OF CRICKET WORLD CUP.

INDIANS SHUOLD MUST PROMOTE AFTERHOUR
GAMES LIKE FOOTBALL.WHEN PEOPLE WILL HAVE MORE THAN 1 GAME TO SUPPORT, INDIA MIGHT WIN WORLD CUP
IN BOARING CRICKET GAME OF UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE.

Pak and Ind have serious issues ,,

(Fortunately)our Pak issues can be solved honestly, I think.. We did not have a coach to blame and players got the bulk of that…

And now players know they are to b blamed…

But India have serious problems than Pak now… they lost one of the best coaches ,cause they needed a scapegoat…Now all players will be fine and no blame on them..
So ind cricket will go to the same lethargy soon..
No point LOOKING TO STEAL OTHER COUNTRIES COACHES.FIX THE ISSUES INSIDE THE SENIOR PLAYERS… NO TOM MOODY CAN FIX IND TEAM. They have to sort it with themselves.. punish some seniors and show that they are not above law..

Heard rumor that a PCB official has talked with Greg…
Well at least PCK has some energy to functions after the shake up..
It has to do much more to revive the Pak cicket..But contracting Greg will be the first thing the PCB can do…
Wake up from the deep slumber PCB and smell the roses!!!!!!plz,,,,

Have seen many Indians blaming chapel for all their mess..
Look at chapels Austrailian A team development…
Plz check the stats deeply b 4 u all talk…
I remember watching some games where Australia vs Australia A ..
With some great young guns , OZ A team beat OZ team in 1 match…

I hope and pray PCB have some man with a brain who see the opportunity and contract greg.. it’s the best and the least thing they can do to PAK cricket…

Please PCB WAKE UP FROM THE DEEP SLUMBER AND get GREG….he ll be the only 1 willing to come to pakistan...and hes just what we need.

mukul, are you going to write somthing of your own or just summarize the best news and interviews of the week. why, are you very busy correcting 6th standard history papers. are you?

How can India win another World Cup? When BCCI takes over ICC, throws out all teams except India and makes them compete against Indian high school teams.

Bring back Sir Ganguly as a Captain.

All problems will solve.

Kick out Tendulkar & Dravid like Chappell.

Bengali Tiger

A coach of the Indian cricket team needs to first neuter the endorsment-savvy bunch of idiots in the squad, and bring them to focus on the job at hand.

Bear in mind how 'senior' cricketers like Harbhajan and Sehwag treated John Wright, who eventually had to leave. Even Gangulay tried the same thing with Bob Simpson, who was consultant coach of the Indian team, during World Cup 1999.

Chappell, thereby, needed to tackle these stars, first. He was addressing the problem correctly, though all of us are not able to digest the findings because of our love for the 'stars'.

Chappell is the best coach we can never have, again. The Indian team, be damned. May a thousand brands bloom!

Mukul,

I'm not sure if you post comments of people who disagree with you because I haven't seen any comments against you from first few that I read. But, I'll still go ahead and air my views:

I don't agree one bit with your comments on Chappell. For one thing, comparing his coaching at South Australia is very different to India. India had a lot of stars which needed to put in their place... unfortunately, the stars - Ganguly, Sehwag, Harbhajan and even Sachin - thought they are bigger than the game! Bhajji was disciplined by his State association once but he didn't seem to learn. Sehwag grew more inches round his waist than a middle-aged police officer. If the coach told them in no uncertain terms to mind their behaviour, that is not wrong. You talked about the hero worship that is prevalent in our land... don't think by saying/suggesting that these cricketers are above discipline, you're also indulging in hero worship? As long as we don't become proficient in another sport (and I'm talking about sports, not some shooting expertise!), we will continue to languish at the bottom of the cricketing ladder. I'd not be very surprised if Bangladesh overtake us some day in the next 5 years. At that time, one of the current team members might be coach or selector or administrator, but it won't make a difference.
It does take a lot of courage to hold your own when you are confronted with so many different personalities and egos. And I think Chappell did really well, the World Cup disaster notwithstanding. Does anybody remember the amazing run India had in 2005-06 when we were beating teams by "tennis score" margins? Didn't we beat Sri Lanka 6-1, England 5-0 and Pakistan in Pakistan by 5-1? Weren't all you cricket writers then going gaga over the team then? Like we were one of the contenders for the world cup etc? Look what's happened now?
Does anybody have a problem with Chappell's e-mail about Ganguly to the board president? Didn't that e-mail clearly show what a master manipulator Ganguly is? I was really interested to read about his manipulation of Laxman... how he spread rumours about the coach to Laxman! It is a tragedy that such a guy was allowed to get back to the team under a different selection committee. I think there is only guy who is fair in all situations... it is Rahul Dravid. I thought he was talking very refreshingly about putting the team before self and stressing the importance of building a team for the future. Alas! The politics of the Indian Board and the stars of the Indian team has put paid to those plans. I doubt this Indian team will improve in the near future... as long as our youngsters understand the value of the India cap, I doubt things will change. It seems to me that the India Cap is only a route to endorsements and five-star quality life. They really don't seem to have enough passion for the game as the yester-year cricketers did.
I think Greg Chappell made a mistake in the WI in 2006 by saying WI have lost the art of winning close matches. It was a very untimely & unnecessary comment because he was coaching an Indian team, not an Australian team. Indian teams are very unpredictable unlike the Aussies! He also might have been a bit more sensitive when dealing with the players, because man-management is also important for a sports coach.
Finally, I doubt India will ever get a coach with his credentials. They might win a match or a series here and there, but the future really is bleak. I shudder to think of the day when Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid retire! We might find struggle to bowl teams out in India also then and bat for long periods even in India! But, I won't stop watching cricket, because the Indian cricket fan is ever an optimist. I hope and pray that we will get somebody like Rahul Dravid & Anil Kumble in the next couple of years to fill the void. I'd have loved to add Sachin Tendulkar's name to this list, but I have lost respect for the guy now. He was god to me for most of the time I have watched him... not anymore!

Is this whining by the indian team a familar story when ever a coach asks the players for tougher training and fitness regimen. Remember few years back when Bishen Singh Bedi was the coach how Indian players acted like sissies when they said they did not want a coach to play. Its the same story being repeated, when ever a coach pushes the players (especially senior) for excellence, then we start crying foul. For excellence in the world you need to push yourselves, when you play at the highest level there is not body that is "untouchable", when attitude is questioned, sulking and ganging is not the answer , but performing and proving them wrong is. When we realise that, we can think about challenging the likes of Australia and SA. It not only applies to Cricket,but Indian sport in general

I am not sure why Mukul Kesavan is "delighted" that Chappell is gone. Also, Mr.Kesavan, you are right about Indians being thin skinned people who cannot take straight talk. Your column proves it for God's sake !!

Let me ask you a simple question, Mr.Kesavan. Does any one objectively think that Tendulkar is good enough to play in the Indian team, one-day or Test matches ? The sad but factual answer to that question is NO. He is a shadow of his former self. His scores in the last few years are a testament to that.

If Chappell points that out by saying that there should be more young players in the team and there should be no reason for emotional sentiments in keeping your team's veterans, what is wrong with that ?

You stay in the team if you perform consistently - if you fail consistently, you dont deserve a place in the side.

By the way, i would love to know what Mr.Kesavan thinks about the facts that fitness levels in the Indian team have always been lacking - not to mention the fact that we have always been a poor fielding side - things that we never seem to have corrected.

What does that say about the commitment of the players to the concept of team cricket ?

I feel that many misunderstand what Chappell does to be "speaking straight"..Infact, what he has been doing is speaking anything but straight leaking stuff left and right to the media..disturbing team harmony and failing to have any accountability..In his world of coaching, everyone and everything is to blame if they dont think along his lines..He was never averse to winning by hook or crook in his playing days and his coaching(thats a stretch) was along a similar vein..

"
India is India..Australia is Australia..You cannot turn Ind into Australia in a day..Chappell and many others in this MB seem to think that what worked in Aus will work in Ind..There are different ways of motivating ppl..Its not all abt acting like a stubborn dickhead or a military trainer..Tom Moody or Dav Whatmore are Ozzies too...Why do you think Ponting called Ian Chappell a dickhead and said that he has lost all respect for him..Bcos the Chappell brothers played their cricket hard and tough and believe that their way was the best way..What Chappell learned is that his way may have been best for him but not best for everybody concerned..All this hype abt.."hey , he talked straight and hence failed is absolute BS in my opinion"..A stereotypical reaction which thinks all Ozzies are like that and all Indians are like this only..Lemme slightly reverse this situation..Lets say Gavaskar becomes the coach of the Aussie side and starts imposing "his process" on them..His process includes his set ideas which he is unwilling to waver on and that includes playing the game "right" and not the uncouth way of playing which he believes is the case..Leaks to the media and calls Ponting arrogant and uncouth....Leaks to the press that McGrath a mafia ruffian who cusses and doesnt follow the "process"..says Hayden is over the hill in the first week he assumes command..Leak that Gilchrist is keeping youngsters out..Do you think the Aussie seniors wud keep quiet???Will any coach worth his salt leak such stuff abt his own team to the press??What do you think is the reaction Sunny wud get had he done this to an Ozzie team and dont tell me that Sunny leaking all this stuff wud not cause disunity and confusion and have no negative effect on that team..
What Im trying to say is that whether its an Aussie or an Indian or SriLankan..No group of players wud have proper team spirit when the coach is working behind the scenes to remove them..All this cr@p abt him speaking straight is just that..Reverse the situation and you will see what the world wud say abt such a coach..Ind players,team and country are no bunch of countryside idiots and niether are they in a world where everything Chappell does is right..Its not a matter of ..hey its the Indian culture and hence he failed..Chappell's reign in South Australia was mired in similar controversies and mess and many players there resented the way he operated..Same thing when he was a captain..Many of his team mates didnt like the way he operated..Now ,same thing with his coaching..You guys are deluding yourselves if you think his personality has nothing to with this..

Let GC coach the Australian team..I can bet my bottom dollar than within a year, he will be at odds with many of the players..Basically, I believe the guy is poor with managing ppl..Its not abt India or its system that failed Chappell..I read that it was written in cricinfo that he showed Indian cricket a mirror..He needs to take a look at the same mirror himself and ask how much he was to blame too!
__________________

Thanks for confirming the stereotypes about your national team. Maybe you need to look at reality a bit more and the poor results of this team. Your away record is pathetic. I don't think the top teams would rate the Indian courage factor at all

Your analysis is flawed and very sadly so as far as Indian cricket it. The problem of Indian cricket is that the coach has less authority than the collective might of your so called stars. ITs like running a major corporation with the CEO being undermined and overridden by the senior management at every juncture. Chappenls communication style you say is symptomatic of the greater problem that exist and not the problem and until Indian cricket keeps ineptly pusuing in a direction of Chappel attack you will always lose the big games when it counts. Sad to say as a Sri Lankan I would have loved to see the Indians in the super 8. Sacking Chappel was the wrong move, Chappels hand should have been instead strengthened driving a message to the "stars" that we mean business. The message is that we will back our coach and not undermine the coarch at critical junctures and leave room for the players to continue undermoining the coach and continue to undermine Indian cricket for the decades ahead. Sadly if India cant be in the top 8 of the world with 1 Billion people and New Zealand are in with a population of a small indian city you got to stop sacking the coach, but strengthen the hand of the coach. I am more surprised how many Indian supporters agree with your point of view. The exaple her is if a CEO of a company is continually undermined by its team of manasgement the company is headed for disaster. Thats sadly where Indian cricket went at the ICC CWC07.

Really well said. The point is we have the results they are bad, so sack him!!

The main issue is the failure of Indian team to fight hard and win against teams such as Australia. Once the players are in thirties their reflexes slow ever so slightly and Indian players are rather more prone to this and they have difficulty facing genuine fast bowling. Added to this is the comfort zone in which the players live due to the financial endorsements and lack of intensity. Players like Tendulkar, Ganguly, Sehwag are not as fit as Ponting and lack the passion for their country. Tendulkar will not get a look in any of the leading cricketing nations with his present form. He is a vastly overrated batsman and Indians should face up to this. He will be able to score runs against Bermuda and other mediocre teams but he is way past his prime if there was ever a time that lasted for too long. It is time that these "Oldies" are sacked and new talent groomed with high speed bowling machines, intense fielding training and practice on bouncy pitches. That may show result in a few years but there is dearth of talent in India where majority of people are not that well off but it is worth a try. Present day cricketers are a bunch of lazy players who are fit for failure and they will have that in plenty in the future.

Mukul:
This is disingenuous, you've neatly sidestepped the big issue. Sure, Chappell was terrible man manager, I'll give you that. You have summarily dismissed all public opinion that seem to concur with his as "orientalist nonsense" (I have to wonder why the racial context even came about in in your argument ;-)), but have you ever wondered why Chappell even began to question some of these players? Why is it that one never heard about Chappell bitching (in private,or public, or in quotes of "sources close to the coach" or what have you) about the players whose commitment was never in doubt even to the average Hari on the street? You might want to talk to your journalist friends a bit more, and you might find that John Wright made multiple pleas to the powers that be, requesting their help in "reforming" certain players. In the end he just realized he couldn't move an immovable object, so he went with the flow. Criticizing Chappell for what seems to be underhanded methods is perfectly fair, but that does not absolve the players of their problems, does it?

I sort of agree, in all the seniors vs juniors vs journalists vs Aussie, we forgot Chappell had an ordinary record for South Australia (and a testimonial from Paul Wilson to boot). It is unacceptable to leak player feedback to media.
However, his in a NCA consultant role, is not so bad. He remains a great thinker of the game, and a blunt speaker. the important thing will be to keep his as a Consultant, advising what sort of cricketer shoudl we look at, not a Manager, who starts deciding whether a particular player qualifies or not.

The good news is Greg Chappell is no longer the coach. The bad news is nothing seems to have changed within BCCI. Sharad Pawar is a career politician and all he wants is to get the ICC job. The Australians came to India, won the trophy and shoved him out of the stage but he will keep licking their boots until the ICC elections.

I can't believe none of the posts have identified the inherent problems with Indian cricket.
As professional sports people, who are well paid, they should be prepared to accept outside opinion.
Unfortunately they don't. And frankly they really don'y have the success to even attempt player power.
Sourav Ganguly has had Indian cricket in a strangle hold for too long. He is corrupt of personality and the least team orientated cricketer in the world. But he still persists and Indian cricket slowly festers. Hardly a recipe for building a team. .... So keep blaming the hard line coach. The least your country can ask for is that your cricketers give 100%, maintain their fitness, and show some PASSION.
Something Sourav, Dhoni and Sachin haven't felt for awhile.
Enjoy the rest of the world cup.

BF

At last some commonsense. India have been molycoddled by yes men for too long.

HAVE TO SAY THIS LOUD AND CLEAR NOW:
PAK IS MUCH BETTER as a cricketing nation...

They have character at the guts to accept defeat ,

pak showed they are humble losers and will do much better in future..
Much better than India,, as they will sort out things quickly and correctly.

Greg will do great if he s taken to Pak.. He s a strong minded guy who can shake the PCB boat and do wonders to the fragile system..
Player ego’s have gone and pak Is ready to a strong coach to mould them….

BRING HIM ON PCB,,,,BRING HIM ON....

IND IS a sore site to look at now.. They cant accept blame and that is not a good way to progress...
BCCI is spineless and big headed than i thought...
Good luck BCCI in the self destruction..
if Ind want to play like OZ , then be like OZ's..be good winners and great loosers....(sachin is a BAD looser anyway...
and u still think hes the best.. punter,gilly are light-yearS ahead both technical and mental AND ETHICAL)

PAK will do better cause, THEY accepted that blame lies with them.. Its SOO EASY WHEN THAT HAPPENS..
Well thanks to bob…
He has helped PCB to realize that fault lies within the PCB.. in that manner BOB HAS DONE A GREAT WORK THAN CHAPPEL. PCB AND PAK CRICKET WILL BE BETTER THAN INDIA CAUSE OF BOB…

I don't know where the other guy claiming to be a "Bangladeshi" gets off by blaming Sourav Ganguly for Greg's failure to improve India's performance. Ganguly is to date the best captain India has had and his dream comeback has only cemented his reputation as a living legend of one-day cricket. Calling him "the least team-oriented" guy is simply laughable. The man literally molded Team India into a Aussie beating force single-handedly as captain of India. A Bangladeshi banner during the India-Bangladesh match actually said, " We love you Dada, but today we want you to lose." Mukul is on the money. For Indian cricket to progress Chappell had to go and hopefully the BCCI will appoint a new captain that can unite the team again. If Chappell is such a great strategist and coach pray tell me which Test or for that matter even Associate nation wants to hire him as their next head coach? Give me Moody or Whatmore anyday.

do we really think that the early exit of our Great Indian team(not only on papers) we should blame Greg Chappell. Well I do too think that he should be blamed for our early exit from the most coveted cup, but he is not the only one who should be blamed for. there are some key facts which prevented our team from reaching even the Super 8.
1. Playing 11 :- 4 Specialist bowlers, 6 Specialist batsmen, 1 Wicket keeper.
Four bowlers - We all know the fact that our bowling squad is not at all best, then dont we think we should have selected 5 bowlers instead and I strongly believe that we should have selected Irfan Pathan as our 5th bowler, I agree his recent bowling performance is not upto the mark, but conditions in the West Indies is best for him and bonus with him that he can bat well too and no 1 can deny the fact that he is really good allrounder, its media who kept on talking about him a lot, could have led his removal from the playing 11.
2. Opening pair :- Right from the begining of the world cup, we were never sure, who would suit the best for the opening slot. Sehwag, who was total failure for almost an year, Robin Uthappa, who is still an emerging player and still cementing his place in the team. Sourav Ganguly, who got selected and still to prove his worth being back in the team and Sachin Tendulkar, who should have opened the innings but somehow demoted to number 4. Sourav Ganguly, who got his berth back in the team scored in every match, but do we really think he is still the best, I agree he got Man of the series award prior to world cup, but with the pace he scored those runs, I dont think is acceptable in todays world of one day international cricket, and he kept his pace during the world cup too. He scored 60 odd runs against bangladesh, but with the strike rate of 50, I agree he stuck to his crease as the wicket from the other end kept falling, but have we realised what would have led the other end kept falling, well I believe it is pressure of not enough runs on the board and now when new man comes in, it is the responsbility of the player already in to make incoming batsman feel easy by taking singles, rotating strike, but that was never the case and the same thing happened in the match against Sri Lanka, he put himself in tremendous pressure by his inability of rotating strike and got out cheaply after playing a loose shot. Sachin Tendulkar, total failure on this world cup, it is not that he wasnt in the form but his position put him in extra pressure which again took him away from his natural game, he has always lived up with one pressure which is the high expectation of all the Indians and the team itself, now when he is batting at number 4 and when the opening partnership didnt put anything on the score, he found himself in another pressure. we all know his talent, but we always critisize him rather supporting him. Sourav Ganguly and Tendulkar should have opened the innings and they both have done that so many times then why we did so many experiments. Sehwag was never in the form for the opening slot so he should have demoted to lower order, Rahul dravid should have come at number 3 followed by Yuvi, Sehwag, Dhoni.
3. Poor fielding performance :- because lack of fitness level our team didnt perform while fielding
4. Poor selection of Bowlers. Anil kumble most senior and experienced bowler in our side. He should have in the side in every game. Seeing his records, past performances, there are no reasons him sitting in the reserve stands.
These all factors definitely raising fingers at poor captaincy and on the coach, however it is team game and every 1 should understand their responsility and perform accordingly, so every 1 is responsible for this. And it is not only players it is us all Indians responsible for this. We always put pressure on our players, we know we live cricket, but players are human beings too, they want our support more than any criticism, criticism should be constructive not to put pressure on any 1. Media people are highly responsible for all this. they do this to get news and publicity for their channel thats it, they can never realise the truth behind everything. they have raised fingers on the inabilities of our team said such things, which they should not have said it. Every Indian is raising fingers on the players saying team has taken India to the grounds, but what those people have done for the country, atleast our team fight for something. It is always easy to comment others, but first look at yourself what you've done for the country so far.
I strongly support Indian Cricket Team and I can understand, what each memeber of the team is feeling these days after this defeat, they need our support not criticism. if we really want our team on the top, we definitely need to support them.

I will say this again. Sourav Ganguly is a waste of time for India. He is not the sort of person any team could have. India cricket will not progress if he is in the side. I don't think he is a legitimate. I question his integrity in the past and I believe we will find out more about this in the future. I also question any commitment to any one other than himself.Time for change India. Cut this person free.

BF

To all those blindfolded idol worshippers who think that John wright's tenure was better than greg --How can you forget the disastrous series against Pakistan in 2005?How can you conveniently forget the tour to NZ prior to 2003 wc where Shane Bond exposed the flaws of our paper tigers and made them look like pussies?
And in the last 20 yrs we didnt win a test series outside the subcontinent until greg took over.This speaks volumes of the quality of talent we possess.

I agree with Bangladeshi, Sourav is nothing short of corrupt. How can Indian cricket lovers put up with rubbish like him.
When you know the truth why ignore it?

Again, it is not only coach, it is every team member should realise their responsibility. Coach is just like a teacher who just can teach you things, but at the end it is every individual player to apply those things accordingly. Coach only can tell ur flaws and the ways, but if the player himself doesnt want to realise then what a coach can do? We always blame Chappell for spoiling Irfan Pathan by making him batsman rather than a bowler, but to be very true, he is the one who saw his real talent as a batsman as well, so what wrong he did by making Irfan realize that he can bat too, its Irfan's fault who concentrated more on batting than bowling. I agree that coach plays a vital role, but at the end of the day it is all players who play in the field

I agree.
Why accept mediocrity India. Ganguly has been a player who plays the divide and rule game. How can he continue to be in the side if he does this. He has peddled lies within the team for years. It is a wonder any coach could work under these conditions and achieve REAL success.

Well said.
These are professional players who are very well paid. It's time they accepted pride in their performance. Dhoni, for instance, must take the next step. Sometimes you have to dig in a little harder. I've yet to see him do that. Not good enough

Forget the coach , forget the coaching , the so called manupilations , sceams..ect ect kindly just tell me "HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU JUSTIFY THE PERFORMANCE OF THE SENIOR PLAYERS IN THE WC." simple you cant,no one can. at the end of the day its your game which matters and its clear where our so called senior players stand now when compared to other players. Sachin , harbhajan,dravid dont have the stomach to accept that they are over the hill (for harbhajan its a matter of talent which he has lost it somewhere) and the best option for them was to blame the coach which shamelessly they have done. I agree with the author on the deficiency of the coach but you can hold that responsible for the debacle.

Mr Kesavan's pithy analyses fall short, again. I am sure Mr K realises that nobody talks about 'coaching' when India was winning those 17-odd ODIs, chasing targets. I presume Chappell was rock solid then, but is the fall guy now, when the team is sliding. The Aussie is only human and is venting his feelings via sms messages, instead of bottling them up. Ganguly's resurgence is one good thing that Chappell's messaging abilities have brought about, just in case everyone has forgotten. We Indians are poor listeners and we remember even less.

Why talk abt Chappel when the players like Tendulkar themselves have such a BS attitude. Tendulkar's words "no coach has even mentioned in the passingby that my attitude is not right" says the whole story for me! Boy!! Now thats an attitude that deserves itself outside the team! Its also spoiling the youngsters.

Hey Bangladeshi and Shantan Lingala - I am so glad that there are those who know just what is wrong with Indian cricket. Read my comments posted earlier on this blog. In the mean time YES - hope more and more people see through Ganguly's self serving ways, and lets continue to remind people about what he did with Laxman in Zimbabwe. And lets let Ganguly be happy with his 4 WC centuries .... three of which came against Namibia, Kenya and Kenya (sigh yes one of them was a semi final BUT it ws still Kenya .... and he scored a handful of runs against teams that mattered - so what else is new). The one leaf that Dravid should take out of Ganguly's book is go blow his own trumpet - start talikng about winning a Test series in West Indies, 17 consecutive ODI run chases, though I doubt whether he could bring himself to talk of winning ONE Test in South Africa, because we lost the series. Of course that didn't stop Ganguly ever .... !!!!

Ind should learn to be good loosers from PAK..
They were real humble loosers and that is very important...

PS:India have to leave coaches of other countries alone... Not the best coach in the world can cure the parasites of Ind cricket... And Leave DEV alone. He s not going to Ind for any price tag BCCI put up... DEV is for Bangla ....

India has competed with Australia toe to toe the last time they went to Australia (in the tests) which has been conveniently forgotten by all the Aussies making their contribution here. They also lost the Ashes to England not so long ago. Every team goes through ups and downs. So it goes and Australia lost two series before the world cup is conveniently forgotten I note.

The Indian batsmen were out of form and a bad day can leave you beaten. This is just a blip and must be seen for what is really is. As for Tendulkar being blamed then if there is someone who can take his place thn replace him otherwise he plays ... by the way playig the ODIs in SA on moving wickets was probably not a good idea... India should have acclimatised first and I am sure their performances would have been different ... as the Test series showed. Even the SAs can't bat on those wickets themselves so don't get carried away and they also beat the Aussies in the ODI series I seem to remember....

well all its gone and Ind are back to square 1.No progress with BCCI,,
as expected no seniors were punished and all will go to the same letharghy in 1 week...

BCCI have to shake this senior cults in the team..
No sunny can save ind by his advice...we need some reforms darn it....
(PAK had some, and PCB had some reforms..and they ll do well in their ressurenction..WITH IMRAN HELPING THE PCB, THEY LL BEAT INDIA SOUNDLY IN THE FUTURE, in very near future....and then there will be no Ind cricket left...)

AND we all blame greg and now all is OK???

INDIAN FANS ARE NOT THAT STUPID.. WE NEED REAL CULPRIT OUT....

Mukul,

Right conclusions, wrong process!

I am happy too that Chappell is not going to continue as the coach. And, I agree that BCCI's administration is woeful. But, that's all that I liked about MK's article. The reasoning is, for want of a better word...rubbish!

Chappell is a thoughtful and forceful man. His desire was to create a winning machine. He couldn't implement his own ideas, but that's less a commentary about him; it's more a scathing statement on the sheer nonsense that the BCCI parades as Indian cricket.

What is needed is for us to implement his ideas better. We need ruthless, committed, and hungry cricketers. And, we need 30 of them. If we do not get here, forget about ever winning the world cup. I respect Chappell because he wanted India to reach that position. There are many others who may want to do that (MK, past cricketers, and other journalists included), but who do not have the balls (apologies for the word) to make the system change. Respect him for that!

He not only held up the mirror, but had the gumption of challenging the system to change. Respect and be grateful to him for that!

Sorry, Mukul. You got this awfully, awfully wrong. You are no agent of change; Chappell is, and do not decry him for that. You are spitting at the moon.

there are a million reasons why india didn't do well. chapell was one of them. we are doing a disservice to the game by talking only about him.

Rahul Dravid wanted a fairy tale. It is unfolding right before our eyes. Great stories won't have predictable sequence of events. India lost to Sri Lanka. Greg planned to react. Got the feed back and held back his arsenal. BCCI acted smartly - moving him around and choosing selective punishment - punishing players not the coach for same crime. Also declared that young team will visit Bangladesh with experienced captain (at least captain is listening to Greg sometime). Cricket is a game where 11 players play and 11000 fools watch and 1100 greedy people want to make money out of it with no real contribution. Here the story took another turn. The pivotal point, that Indians are useless (because I am Indian I can criticize India) and South Africans and Australians are Untouchable in western meaning (because I am not born there, I don't have right to criticize them), has taken a beating. South Africa is facing a huge task with a required run rate of 22 with 2 wickets in hand & 6 overs remaining. Like we have alternate players (of-course India has a population of 1 billion) we have alternate coaches ( 7 billion) and one of them David Whatmore is showing them the way. Now the young team of India - without the services of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Sehwag, Agarkar and Zaheer (in short the mafia), has to face Bangladesh next month. This is just beginning of a fairy tale.

I have a request to those editors. If you believe in freedom of speach, you must publish all comments whether you like it or not, except for the language used.

It's time for indian cicket to take the blindfold off. Your senior players have held your 'team' to ransom for years. Just remember what happened with Azzer. Their could be another one or 4 waiting to be revealed.

Mukul,
Yor article was a joke.

As a Bangladeshi I can tell you that 'Dada' is not held in high regard. He is seen as corrupt.

Isn't it a coach's job that he has to get the best of whatever he has? This is the question that poses all the subsequent questions.Isn't it the selectors and the board who have to decide on which players to have? Chappell apparently did not believe in both these.Its his fault that having got not what he wanted, he was determined to get those guys out which did not fit into his vision through his manipulative and subversive ways.

This is not straight talk or honesty that BS manjrekar talks about.

Also, a coach is responsible for getting a player(once picked) into form, into confidence, he did neither and probably and for worse, had a denigrating influence on senior players.

It is a little disheartening to see many of you lay the blame of poor performance on Greg's door. This is typical of the Indian cricketing fan, who thinks that Sachin & Co. can do wrong, when Sachin is actually a pseudo-hero who has always performed when the pressure is zero and has never truly won the big matches. C'mon guys, it is cricketers such as Dravid who are the true heroes and Dravid plus Chappell was the right formula for the future of Indian cricket. The oversize egos of Sachin + Sourav + Harbhajan + Sehwag + Yuvraj (recent development) have proved rather detrimental to the good that Greg and Rahul planned and I am very gratified in noting that the BCCI plus Vengsarkar have actually rapped the psuedo heroes on the knuckles and have given Rahul the mandate to steer India from this mess that Sachin and Co. laid the foundation for.

I am utterly shocked at the mercenary attitude of Sachin & Co. C'mon guys if you cant' score or field, please retire.....don't hang in to make the dough...you owe it to the true cricket fan...and Rahul, do what you do best....back the youngsters (and drop the non-performing seniors), because you lead by example and are (by far), the best batsman that we have ever had

Dont cricticize Chappel.I think what all he said and did was for the good cause of Indian team.
The problem with indian team starts from their negative body language,poor physical fitness,poor fielding,porr running between wickets etc.
Indians lacked a killer instinct which they had in the 2003 edition.
Now its not Chappel's problem that a player like Ganguly who takes 132 bowls to score 60 aginast bangladesh and 120 bowls to score 85+ against Barmuda and still can't connect the ball well.

I'd say it's not that Chappell wasn't the right coach for India, it's more India wasn't the right team for Chappell.

The only way India is every going to become a dominant force in world cricket is when it adopts a professional Australian-like attitude to their sport. Simple as that, No questions asked... but they're in denial.

Chappell was the type of coach India needed, the type of coach that would make them a dominant force and wouldn't put up with any cr@p... but the team simply couldn't cope with that.

Similar thinga have occured in Pakistan with the Bob Woolmer saga, but even with all that I can't help but look at Sri Lanka, with the Australian Tom Moody as coach, and how well they are going. In particular, their attitude towards coach and country is impeccable and shames India and Pakistan to no end.

It now looks like India will appoint an full-time Indian coach. Go ahead, see if the rest of the world cares, because all it will do is feed the blind denial currently engulfing the team. India will never be world-dominant under an Indian coach, they never have and they never will. They themselves are weak and only feed the inner weakness of the team. It's laughable to even suggest that goose Gavaskar could lead India into glory, but with the current BCCI any idiot could be chosen.

I have read that Australia will play India a LOT in the coming season. I look forward to the relentless miserable thrashings that the Aussies will give them, which to any other team would harden and galvanise them to greater things (i.e. England)... but not India.

You are right Mukul, "Indians are like that"... THE NEVER LEARN.

PS: I must qualify some of my statements, as there is one player in the Indian team that I still have respect for. Rahul Dravid, one of my favourite players in the world and to me a revered leader. It's been noted many times that he was the only player to have the guts to stick with Chappell, and could handle his criticism. Of all the Indian players, Rahul has developed the most hardened and professional attitude to his cricket. I feel immensely sorry for him at the moment, as despite his efforts, it seems he is the captain of a sinking ship. But like all good captains, a man if his integrity will eventually shoulder the blame, and go down with his ship.

The Indian Cricket loving Public, must observe the functionings, of the Cricket Establishment, in India. They must be encouraged, by the establishment, to do so. This will decrease the pressure, on all parties concerned, including the fans. A gardener, does not only observe, the beauty, of the flower, because, the appropriate functioning, and state of the roots, stem, leaves, etc, is essential for the beauty, of the flower of the pertaining plant. When the whole plant is tended, then one takes pleasure, in the whole plant, and the pleasure, derived from the flower, is a secondary pleasure. Indian Cricket should be nurtured, in this manner, and India, should treat Indian Cricket as its own, not as the charge of an employee-gardener. I was inspired, and thrilled, by Mr Shastri's recent dealings with Indian Cricket. It bodes well for Indian Cricket, to be associated with individuals like him, and with the consequent team, that is formed, by these individuals.

I disagree
Manjrekar, I do agree with, I read that article nad feel he was spot on. The comparison with John Wright is inappropriate. The team then was clearly a better one, all of VVS, SRT, RD and Saurav were at their prime in terms of age and talent. The role that Wright played is debateable. I feel the Indian senior players are in general thin skinned and SRT is too much of a holy cow of Indian cricket. Dravid is still the only man taleented in enough to do well when they come her to AUS. I really do not want to see Saurav or Tendulkar here. It is well past the end stage for SRT. The core of Indias future has to be Dravid, Sehwag, Yuvraj, VVS, Dhoni, Sreesanth. I am not a fan of players like Munaf Pateel, who are weak in body and spirit.Come on Indian fans, we did not lose the World Cup because of Chappell, we lost it because our players do not have any incentive to win. The gamee in India is too much of a rich boys club at thee top level. How can a country of 1 billion , produce no great cricketers any more.

Mukul,
A well written article, though I dont agree with everything you said. Also Manoj Parveens long note on recent happenings. I have no problems with the present team, except that some of the guys like Bhajji, Sehwag should take time off and also maybe Yuvraj till he gets his fitness sorted out. I am a Tendly fan from the time he came in to the team in '87, is it? He has given us so many wonderfull moments to cherish, and has been a model to our youth in his reticence in speaking out in the press. Which was why I felt shocked when he responded to the supposed leak about "commitment etc" from a supposed aide of Chappell(not my favourite person). And following the BCCI meetings when the players got hit where they felt it the most, namely their bank accounts(restrictions, re:endorsements), we find other rats coming out of a sinking ship. Like Jadeja indignantly asking what right did the BCCI had, to interfere with the players right to the players livelyhood ( the same guy who was banned for 5 years for making money on match-fixing!!!) and Sidhu who almost clobbered a lawyer on NDTV, who had dared to disagree with him. I wonder why NDTV, an otherwise respectable news channel, could find only find these two discreditted former cricketers to comment on cricket. Whereas Headlines Today had the indomitable Kapil Dev, a braveheart if ever there was one, taking on Niranjan Shah telling him the BCCI cannot use the 7 former cricket captains shoulders to fire their artillerry at the Indian team.

So, the board has at last come up with its prescription for the ills of Indian Cricket. While they cannot please everyone I feel there are shades of quackery therein. I think doing away with graded contracts is a retrograde step. Every major cricket nation has a graded contract system in place and we in our autocratic wisdom choose to go backwards! It is a knee jerk reaction at best. There is of course nothing wrong with performance related bonuses in addition to a basic contract. But players can only usefully play and earn till their mid thirties and if we restrict their earning potential and security by such cantankerous and draconian measures it is unlikely to lift performance. Of course it will be conducive to the employment of pliable youngsters who will genuflect appropriately before their elders but, promoting such characterless robots in itself will not ensure performance on the field against the likes of Oz. You only have to look at Indian Hockey to see that. And is this principle uniform? Are the selectors, coaches and board staff going to take pay holidays in case the team does not perform? And if so, are they going to define ‘performance’ a priori?

The only effect it will have is enhancing the allure of Zee league and dare I say it, match fixing. In fact in Azharuddin’s time some were allured in spite of being somewhat well paid. One thing we also have to remember is that the core group of Sachin, Saurav, Rahul, Srinath, Kumble and to a lesser extent Sehwag, Yuvraj and Harbhajan with their dedication and competitiveness lifted India from the murky depths of the match fixing days to a position where under Wright and Ganguly they were arguably the only test team to be able to challenge Australia in tests (we beat them at home and drew away, England could not do that although they get more hype) and reached the finals of the SA world cup. They deserve the nation’s gratitude for that (the current office bearers were not in sight then) and if the board does not want them they should have the guts to tell them that so they can retire gracefully. There are unsubstantiated allegations via leaks and SMS that player agent nexus selects the team. That is bad but still better than a bookie player administrator nexus. In any event if that allegation is true then the selection committee and tour management should be sacked since they in fact select the team.

Professional players do not deliberately underperform (it is against their interests even if you have a commercial viewpoint. You only have to look at videocon to see that). They underperform because of physical (injury) reasons or mental unpreparedness for what ever reason. It is the job of the coaching staff to address that and the prime requirement for a coach is good management skills. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to see that.

The board should also remember that their clout and power is due to endorsements only and companies will not be as interested if the top players are barred from plugging their products. Please don’t kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

It is good to try youngsters for less arduous tours like Bangladesh but, experimentation with new talent should ideally be in the ODIs (which we play too much of) and players who prove temperament there can be drafted in to tests as required. The seniors by concentrating on tests and important ODIs only will prolong their career. It may also be a good idea to hand the ODI captaincy to Yuvraj to see if he has it in him and to test his mettle.

I also feel that if any coach in future communicates dressing room happenings by SMS or email to the media that should be an instantly sackable offence and should form part of the contract. The code of conduct applies to everyone. When the first leak happened it was attributed to Ganguly and he said then that time will tell who was responsible for it. How right he was.

Admitting that we need separate bowling and fielding coaches underlines Chappell’s egotistic refusal to countenance a bowling coach and is a tacit acceptance of his short comings in this sphere. Chappell was one of the greatest post war batsmen but, has achieved nothing in coaching either in India or in Australia (in fact, in Oz knowledgeable people consider him a poor coach. There is no dichotomy here since a good practitioner need not be good teacher.) . Why then appoint him NCA director? If you wanted a foreigner you could not do worse than Rod Marsh who has proved himself in that capacity in two different countries.

Well, instead of restricting the players to a specific number of endorsements, i guess it would be better to make the players earn it...like they should win 5 man of the match awards to get permission for one endorsement and they shud be paid performance incentive for every match they win. ( only very nominal match fee shud be paid for the matches that we loose) and again the quantum to be paid for winning the matches can be decided depending on the opposition team ( and whether its played home or away). I think linking the endorsements to their continued better performances would be fair enough for the players as well as the fans as it would be performance oriented and we may expect to win more matches (improve the pathetic win percentage, specially for away matches). This way the board can avoid any legal hassels that may arise due to restricting the players to any specific number of contracts and at the same time make the players concentrate on the game...

jeetverma
hyderabad

For a person who talked so much about improving the "process", it baffles me how he thought he could get a team to win, by screwing up 'man management' single-handedly. Any collective effort, irrespective of the talent cannot succeed in the long-run if 'man management' fails! A person so uptight about 'processes' should have known that 'man management' is also a process. This guy just did not have it in him to coach not just with India but even with the provinical side in Australia. Too big an ego and good that he is gone.

Chappel brothers are no doubt obnoxious. I mean how can Ian Chappel think of calling for Tendulkar to retire when his own brother is the coach of the Indian team ? Does the man have some tact or what ? Greg Chappel also does not understand Indian culture and psyche so he was a misfit.

That being said , Indian team has the same problem as Indian companies and Indian culture at large where the "senior" suppress the juniors and heirarcy and incompetence runs all the way to the top . Labels and stars are rarely questioned and decisions are made on the basis of provincial biases and prejudices.

On that I support Chappell but he is certainly lacking in man management.

The malady that CRICKET INDIA faces today has been an age-old story, from time immemorial. You can trace the ego, factionalism, polarization, politics etc. that exist in INDIAN CRICKET from the time India made the first visit to UK to play MCC back in 1940's. Added to that the administration system, mirrors the same characteristics as displayed by the players.

INDIAN CRICKET since ages have been depended upon a few individuals to showcase their talent and ability to carry the team. Why TEAM INDIA has not been to translate the individual success into TEAM success is bewildering.

It's human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

I don't agree to that Chappel or Wright is a better than an Indian coach. Even an Indian coach can do a better job as long as the coach can do straight talking and reign in factionalism.

In India, when you are blunt and say things as they are, people (peers/managers/executive) may take it as a slight and they don't forget it easily. This nature of Indian behaviour can be traced to any organizations, where psycophancy, obedience, respect/agreement with your superiors are rewarded. But when a white skinned guy does straight talking, that is considered as guts and fearless. It is time India and Indians get out of this mindset.

The ultimate measure of a coach is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

SURELY OUT OF A BILLION PEOPLE , WE CAN FIND A DECENT BATSMAN OR TWO TO REPLACE THE INEFFECTIVE SACHIN , SELFISH SAURAV AND UNFIT (FAT) SEHWAG ? IF WE CANNOT DO SO , ITS A REFLECTION OF THE SPINELESSNESS OF THE SELECTORS TO DROP THE FORMER GREATS . LETS SAPARE SACHIN THE HUMILIATION THAT KAPIL DEV HAD TO UNDERGO TO BREAK HADLEE'S RECORD .

this one is for shahid and garry.
i just want u to know that u have got ur facts all wrong. since when were pakistanis "humble losers" (not loosres)? my memory of pakistan just brings out seat burnings in stadia when the team was losing. this was/is very common and something very specific to the pakistani team. i remember watching the world cup in 2003, when pakistan lost to india. the only thing that pakistanis were doing at the end was burning up seats and god knows what not.

if u think that ur team is humble, u guys obviously dont watch a lot of cricket. the only humble guy in the paki team is inzi.

the rest are over rated, under performing, and arrogant.

I dont think the indian team would have performed any better with a different coach.Stop wasting everyone's time and just accept that India played badly.

The issue is with the players and selection board. The players take it that once in the team they can camp there forever. This belief is reinforced by the selection board.

Unless there is a change to this approach, India will never be @ N0#1 spot.

Indian cricket team is such a shame even if they have won world cup no one should praise,there are players two decades old in team that is not sportmanship while all other cricket playing nations had teams changed five times old junkies are stuck in indian criket team since two decades.Cricket is not about winning or loosing , those players should identify themselves and hide themselves b4 public chase them and they cannot find place to hide.

OZ is the best in the world.. So if Ind want to b the best,, well keep dreaming..
Whatever the public/mukul thinks , sachin is well behind OZ batsmen...
Can u beat puner, Gilly,Symo or Even clarke...
They have real class,and much better than sachin,, but they dont brag and get worshipped...

i can bet anyday that even CLARKE is 100 times better in Techniques, physical and ETHICAL THAN SACHIN...
and its time India accept it..

aussie

It is amusing to read the sudden vituperations on Sourav Ganguly by some of the readers, and contrast it with what Cricinfo carried on the latest quotes by the Great Failed White Hope of Indian cricket. Please see below :

Chappell also praised senior cricketers, including Sourav Ganguly, who was ousted as captain and later dropped after a public spat with Chappell in 2005. Ganguly made a comeback during the Test series in South Africa in December.

"He [Ganguly] has practised most of what I had preached during the time he was out of the side. Sourav has shown plenty of determination in winning his place back. I hope he continues to work hard on his fitness and score heavily for the team."

We now look forward to mails which suggest that Ganguly is scheming enough to have fooled Greg in his second stint.

And for all the folks who take a look at Sanjay Manjrekar and his pithy comments - has it ever occurred that Manjrekar lost his place in the Indian side when a certain Dravid and Ganguly came up on the 1996 tour of England and has never again shown the gumption to fight back for his team. Or have we forgotten the slow crawl in the 96 semi finals when he scored his 60 odd and got out ? Did one question his commitment then ?

And a final one for the BCCI - when you invited all captains, including Shastri, who was there for just one test, why did you leave out Ajit Wadekar, who was also a successfull manager ? Did it have anything to do with his belonging to the anti Pawar camp in Mumbai cricket politics.

And to think that Sanjay Manjrekar has come out with his latest inanity on how "perfect" the BCCI decisions have been.

Things that make you wonder.

I had to laugh at the fool who suggested that Chappell should coach Pakistan - as if he would even consider that after Bob Woolmers murder. We all know that in the end the truth will come out an a shadow will be cast of Pakistan cricket, AGAIN.

India's coach, should be a coach from the subcontent. I think that Sunil Gavaskar should be our batting coach. If we would allow it i would have liked it if Mohammad Azhruddin would be our fielding coach & batting coach. But we should try to get our hands on Jonty Rhodes! Our bowling coach should be Wasim Akram or Waqar Younis. Wasim was a better bowler---but Waqar was a better captain.Another good bowling coach is Dennis Lillie. Maybe in a few years we should try to get Glenn McGrath or Shaun Pollock. India should make a new insitute like the MRF foundation. They should get the best coaches and try to teach our youngsters. I think whenever Sachin retires, he will make a great coach---because of his techniques. I think then India should change there ODI batting line-up. Tendulkar and Ganguly should open up--one of them are bound to perform. Dravid and Yuvraj at 3&4. Sehwag should be at No. 5---he has great talent and has an amazing strike rate of 94. Dhoni should be at 6---he is probably the hardest hitter in the indian team. I think that Robin Uttapha is an amazing batsman--he can score runs in a very short period of time. Uttapha should be at 7, this will provide us with a nuclear explosion of 6's when it comes to the 35th over+. Pathan is a good allrounder. He should be at 8. Ajit Agarkar is a good bowler for India so he should be at 9. It depends on the pitch for the no. 10 position. On a spinners paradise, like most of the Indian pitches Ramesh Pawar should be the no 10. But in the Australian tracks and South African tracks Munaf Patel should be at 10. Harbajan Singh is our best ODI bowler at the momment---He must be in our team. Here is a team which is bound to prospure:

1.Sachin Tendulkar
2.Sourav Ganguly
3.Rahul Dravid
4.Yuvraj Singh
5.Verinder Sehwag
6.Mahendra Dhoni
7.Robin Uttapha
8.Irfan Pathan
9.Ajit Agarkar
10.Ramesh Pawar/Munaf Patel
11.Harbajan Singh

The 3 big strikers lift India's middle order to probably the best in world cricket. Sehwag will go mental in the final few overs---Dhoni as we all know can hit a century off 20 balls. Uttapha is still undiscovered but he does have a strike rate over 105.
Our Strike rates are absolutely amazing:

1.Sachin Tendulkar- S/R- 85
2.Sourav Ganguly- S/R- 77
3.Rahul Dravid- S/R- 75
4.Yuvraj Singh- S/R- 88
5.Verinder Sehwag- S/R- 94
6.Mahendra Dhoni- S/R- 97
7.Robin Uttapha- S/R- 105+

Just look at these strike rates. Now---wonder...Why doesn't India do well in One Dayers? Is it because it's the wrong arrangment in the batting order---or is it because we have a bad coach? I think we have the greastest batting line-up based on records and statistics. But the truth is---India isn't doing well because of the players and the coach.

Chappell was a magalomaniac psycho who,from day one satrted destroying Indian players personally and professionally. I think the Indian team need intense psychotherapy to get over the damage done by a flawed person like Greg Chappell. John Wright was also a foreigner, had differences with the then captain Ganguly, but things happening in the dressing room never came out in public. I shudder to think what it must have been for Indian players to suffer a psycho like Greg Chappell for two years. As for Ian Chappell is concerned, he was the one who took his pants off in the field and "mooned" the spectators.If these brothers are so great, why doesn't the Australian Criket Board hire them?

"...I'm delighted he's gone." - But is he?

way to go mukul! greg chappel should`ve been kicked out long ago. he has caused too much damage to indian cricket devided the team and as a sri lankan it breaks our heart. he s a lousy coach and a terrible negative influence on the team. but i cant help mentioning the role of overpaid, money minded, personal record & personal glory craving, arrogant indian cricketers in the recent defeats. may be time has come now to look around for some youngsters who actually are keen to play for their country for a change. ( look at bangladesh !)

Standard Indian Answer to a debacle.
Blame the coach, Blame the BCCI, Blame the goverment.

Chappell or no Chappell... the solution lies with the worshipping fans. Like some of the other comments, one should not idolize individuals but rather concentrate on team performance. BCCI is not the solution. Government is not the solution.
Cricket fans have the solution.
Money is the problem. India is gloating in the fact that there is lot of foreign money coming into the country. Indian players are being treated to monies that was not imaginable years back.
1. Stop patronizing Cricket for a year, patronize other games (atleast this will prepare us to get a silver medal in the next olympics). Do not follow the game, do not attend any of the games, do not buy any of the products that they endorse.
2. Do not let any of the players get endorsements.
3. Teach the players humility. Let him do community service,if needed.
4. Once the cricket idol worshipping stops and there is no fan following, the teams will perform.

Ive watched a few of these 'Comments' pieces and a few of the articles and have a couple of observation to make:
1. Generalizations about culture happen for a reason and these are sometimes racist and sometimess not.
2. If we all showed 10% of the passion and emotion that we have shown in talking about cricket and the indian team and chappell etc ad nauseum, got off our collective butts and went out there and exercised and played games, the country would be a whole lot better and a lot of problems would take care of themselves.

We as a nation are butt-warming, arm-chair experts disinclined to any sport or physical activity and it will be our lot to a remain sub-standard sporting nation till this remains true.

Or is this just another generalization to be disdainfully dismissed?

am off for an evening run now...

Rather than blaming outsiders, lets look inside our own house.
1) BCCI - ever since I can remember, I am 57yrs old, our administration has been in a total mess. Corruption, conflicts & incompetence has been a long ongoing history of this admin. Run by politicians, bureaucrats & "yes" men with little or without any knowledge of the game, each looking after their own interests & unable to make bold decisions, only compromises, as politicians do.

Players - now overpaid, over weight & over cocky & under performing, who believe themselves to be indispensable & male models rather than cricketers . Most cant field, catch or run between wickets. The batsmen feels his only role in the team is to bat & the bowlers to only bowl, neither feels the need to improve their fielding or catching for which one needs agility & athleticism. Each in the team does enough to ensure his selection for the next match, safe in the knowledge that there is not much bench strength.
One of the poorest country among the top cricketing nations with a very modest track record and yet with the highest paid & richest cricketers in the world.

The Public - "zero" to "hero" & "hero" to "zero" type following. One good shot & the player is regarded as a "class" player, one good innings & the player becomes a prodigy, one good series & he becomes "god" & a series win & the team becomes "world beaters". The public worships the players fanatically when the going is good & burns effigies when they lose. Players are showered with money & modelling contracts & the public buys any old rubbish they promote as "models" further enriching their pockets & taking them off track.
Until, we the paying & supporting public, do not start treating cricket purely as a game- not religion- the players purely as sportsmen- not "gods" or "models", we will not have a team of any consistency, never mind world beaters.

Indian cricket, like the West Indies right now, is filled with players who perform well at home for individual records when there is no pressure. Outside of the sub continent and when put under pressure the Indians always seem to fold save for one or two odd occasion. I say that no matter who was coaching India during this world cup they would have folded anyway especially since they insist on picking players based on pass glory and not taking into account their present form.

Mr Manjrekar

Sir we accept your comments on the Indian cricket team. But I do not know of a single match you helped us win. With 5 centuries in your entire career, you should not point fingers at people who average 5 centuries per year. Statistics are objective in nature and can correct individual biases. Statistics show that you performance as a cricketer is plain appalling.

One must take into account that under john wright these senior player were a lot younger and more agile in the field. Lets not confuse issues here. We cannot perform well with a team that can't run hard between wickets and leak runs with a sloppy show in the field. Cult figures in the team who haven't delivered over the past year should be dropped making way for renewed team. Endoresement contracts may be holding them back from retiring and leaving the field gracefully. But the selection committe can make that decision for them!

I think poinying finger at the coach for the poor performance of the team is not fair. coach's main responsibility is to formulate a strategy that can make team hard beat and consistantly perform at high standard. Most of the indian players have played enough cricket to know what to do in tight situations this is some thing you learn through experiance no body can teach you this. I think india,s match against srilanks was hard game srilankans seems to have a plan b when they lost first three wickets although indian bowlers bowl ok uptill 45th overs but there was lack planning when they were bowling to the likes of dilshan it is coach's duty to make plans for each players of the opposing team. It was also clear in bangladesh match that indian lacked mental strength in the later stages of the match i don't think you can blame coach for this for example ganguly who is very aggressive player against spin bowling was playing far too slow and against srilanka when situation demanded otherwise he played a rash stroke, which was really not required.Change of coach will not bring any change unless we change the team ethics and give coach more responsibility in terms of selection and one more thing as india play so much cricket i think it will be good to have some specilists for tests and onedays.

Mukul: All this is well and good. As recent events have shown, coaches can be fired or will resign due to public pressure. Players who don't perform can be dropped. Sponsors will cancel endorsements contracts or get burnt for backing losers. There is a semblence of accountability for everbody except BCCI. Who will punish the BCCI for not batting for Indian cricket? They call themselves "Board of Control for Cricket in India" and apparently even a rat cannot move in Indian cricket without its permission. How do you deal with BCCI's failure?
In my humble opinion, BCCI owns the primary responsibility for this debacle. There is an apt American expression - "Poop now or get off the pot". BCCI needs to get off the pot.

I hate to stray away from the point of an article; but when I see glaring errors in an article, it becomes hard to focus on the point. What does the word creature mean in the following sentence? "But Wright was a creature of the team's senior players". Creature does not mean "slave to" or "controlled by". Almost everything living in the world can be called a creature! The word protagonist is being misused in this sentence "and this includes Chappell's protagonists". Protagonist does not mean supporter! I stopped reading after this sentence!

The "This is how we are" attitude only works in flicks of a romantic nature (and B-grade ones at that) that have no connection with reality. It was working fine till India got a reality check against the mediocre Banglas (nowithstanding their odd victory, they are distinctly mediocre). But sure, go ahead and refuse to accept the inconvenient truth. Make that fat man Sachin the captain, have the tricolor swinging Mohinder Amarnath as coach and, just like the theme of an American channel that mainly deals with brainless reality shows, "Watch what happens".

Mukul - I have been reading 1000's of articles and blogs by top guns ever since D-Day happened. Surprisingly very few talked of what would have happened if India managed to get into Super Eights (Except for probably Sambit Bal in one of his articles).

Assume (Dont presume...let us be an ass for this moment) India managed to have beat Bangal tigers mariginally (Say 3 runs, 5 runs or 10 runs) or atbest Bangladesh have had a bad day with Bermuda. India would have been playing with 8 best teams in the world (Are there more??) in Super Eights!

Then What??

Indians would have received some thrashings from Bigwigs of Aussies, Kiwis and SAfricans. Probably managed to spring a few surprise wins against English or Windies; and likely would have demolished Ireland on a lucky day. Ofcourse Semis is distant reality.

Greg would have been identified as ever improving coach and ready for next term extension. Senior players might have got some large endorsements, and improved their cricket statistics; fingers would have raised against Sreesanth or one of the new comers who would have given 50 runs in 4 overs in one odd match. No punishments, no team changes, no harsh decisions. BCCI is not unhappy for the commercials they receive. Sposors will be pleased as show goes on, and the media always have a topic to enthuse critics and fans.

A win-win situation???

Greg Chappell was an integral part of Indian team. Chappell has indeed held up the mirror to Indian cricket for not being the top 8 teams in the world! He has contributed his part in rewriting Indian cricket history.

But we know cricket never dies!

What everyone seems to be forgetting is that it;s not the coach who goes out and plays for the team --- it's the players --- and they failed. Miserably. Maybe some of Chappel's methods were obnoxious...but the Indians under John Wright were molly-coddled... he was too soft on them. And the result --- the players got too big for their boots. Another thing is that there were fewer 'seniors' under Wright whereas now apart from Sachin, Sourav, Dravid and Kimble, you would also consider Sehwag, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and others as seniors...and being seniors I think they are under the impression that they get royal treatment. I think Greg Chappel would have been good for the Indian team to bring them down a peg or two since these are people who are idolised in the country for no rhyme or reason! They need an Australian treatment where no one can take their spot for granted. Unfortunately Indian cricket needs a scapegoat and since we never seem to want to point fingers at our 'beloved' cricketers, who better than a foreign coach???!!!

I think Chappel was a great player and a poor coach. I thought that when he took over (his track record as coach in Australia was also not very good) he had a very good side with good morale and exceptional talent. To be able to coach a talented side you meld the players together - a great example was Chicago's Phil Jackson and John Wright. As such we need to retain some lessons learnt and Whatmore is probably a better fit for India.

Also all that crap about straight talking and it not being an Indian trait is just that - garbage. In any part of the world, straight talk is within closed doors, not in public, and you don't break a winning combination the way the former coach has. Finally, there should be accountability, but today we are in a mess and it will take some time to clear up. Dravid has been a failure as a captain and should either back off or be replaced. I think the best bet will be Ganguly for a short time, with the beginning of dropping of some key player so that they either shape up or retire.

Chappell was not as bad as the team performed. There seems ego problems with the team. And from now ( when Chappell gone ) team will perform. It is Idia and Aussie can'nt undrstnd Indians. It is good for Chappell to leave India.

Well Indians are the best players in the world however they have to respect the cricket rather respect Advertisements.so once if they do this i am sure that atleast in the next wolrd cup they will be the champions.

We lost in the first round mainly due to Dravid's stupid captaincy and Greg Chappell's bad coaching and domineering approach with the players.

Dravid fought for Sehwag's inclusion. Then he should have played Sehwag and not Uthappa. What were both Uthappa and Sehwaq doing in the team?

Why did we have 4 openers (sehwag,ganguly, sachin and uthappa)? When Uthappa failed twice he should'nt have been played in the match against SL.

Ideally they should have played Irfan Pathan as a batsman (he bats much better than sehwag and Uthappa)and sent him at No 3. If he can bowl and get some wickets that would have been great.

In the match against Bangladesh India made 191 which was atleast a respectable total. India should have defended it against Bangladesh.

What was Dravid thinking when it took all powerplays in the first 20 overs. We needed wickets and since we did not get them in the initial overs we should have stopped their scoring and put pressure on them by postponing the powerplays.

Sachin bowled 3 overs for 8 runs and he was taken off the attack whereas Zaheer, agarkar and the rest who were being hit were given overs regularly. Sourav was'nt bowled at all in the bangla match. You have to try every combination when its not working.

In the match against SL sehwag was'nt bowled at all even though he had bowled well in the previous matches.

We did not lose because of fielding. we lost because of our batting.

Sachin has always played well at the top and he does'nt enjoy batting in the middle order.

Sachin and sourav should have opened with Irfan pathan at No 3. Dinesh karthik and Irfan pathan should have been instead of Uthappa/Sehwag.

Dhoni played some irresponsible shots against SL and bangladesh to get out first ball. It was yuvraj's call and dravid should have run but he sent yuvraj and yuvraj got out. Yuvraj was the in form batsmen and dravid should have sacrificed his wicket. dravid cannot win a game on his own anyways.

And all those who talk about India winning 17 consecutive chases in a row those all were in the subcontinent and those were mainly resposible due to some good batting by Yuvraj, Pathan and Dhoni.

I strongly agree with V Prabhakar's statement. Yep,If players are no good then no coach can save them. In my view, Greg Chappell is be best coach India has ever had. It's our player who let the team down not the coach. I strongly believe coach can't go and perform in the middle.I'm shocked by Sachin's remarks on Chappell. Instead of conceding his inablity, he accuses Chappell. God only can save the Indian Cricket. Sachin,Sourav,Agarkar and Bajji shold be thrown out of Indian cricket team. To me,it looked like sachin is fighting his place in the team on a non-merit basis. It's shame on you Sachin.

What a load of rubbish.

The Indian team bombed out of the world cup because the players weren't good enough individually and as a team. Their form was poor and anyone with the least bit of honesty would have realized that India had been playing poor one day cricket for a long time before the world cup.

Over analysis on every single aspect of Chappell's personality and demeanor are just a by product of an over zealous, hyper sensitive, and bottom feeding media industry. This is prevalent among the subcontinent's media that live on exagerrated journalism fed by the vaguest hints of controvesy so that the mindless, moblike like masses can consume every last piece of nonsensical journalism.

Since the obvious has already been stated in regards to why the Indian Cricketers played poorly, it's now time for the media to turn over every rock and loose stone for any last bit of hackeneyed and jaded tidbit to try and explain away the disasterous Indian performance.

Anything explanation will do. No matter how ridiculous it may be such as Chappell's personality, his hairstyle or his diet. Anything to explain away and hide the fundamental flaws in Indian Cricket.

Go ahead continue to live in denial while other great teams are looking for the next good young cricketer, the Indian fan/journalist is looking for the next coach scapegoat.

hi friends. lets not chastise our cricketers and stone their houses. they are human beings. first of all let me highlight the fact that India is not a sportoriented country. no mother would moot the idea of her kid being a sportsman unlike Australia . i have been to Australia where people enjoy their sports unlike india where it gets hysterical especially cricket. let the guys play without pressure and see the way they will perform . Sachin looks like a guy carrying all the mountains in the world. Defeat hurts them too as people like Sachin take pride in themselves. No fool would put money over their skills and pride. Sachin is DDDefinitely not one and nor is Sourav and dravid and the rest . poor blokes man give them a break let them enjoy their lives . with the pressure being exerted on them , someone will crack under the pressure and commit suicide.
The second thought about money . these cricketers earn their livelihood through cricket and their span is 15 years max. if they earn some money through adds and sponorship then what is the harm?No one remebered BS Chandreshekhar when he was in the bed fighting death? he was Indian's greatest spinner. did any of you smart blokes provide any help . does any one remember him? all we Indians are hypocrites . we all like money but would hate the other person bcos we are not able to earn like him.Should the cricketers become Devdas and sleep eat drink cricket only dont they have a life , dont they have a family to look after. who is going to feed their family , you me ??my friends wake up, wake up to the fact that they have a right to earn money and if they consistently dont perform anyways they are going to lose the glean sheen that they are embodidied with . lets support our players in their hour of need . our boys are down but not out.Sachin will rise like the meteor and end his career like the Don.
the third point: not all great players maketh great coaches. Greg was a failure as the coach of S. Australia . why are we oblivious to that fact . we went by the name and not by the work he has done as acoach . we are not Austrlaians we are Indians we have our own culture. Greg cannot use stick method to coach our players and what was he doing by shooting from his hip to the media. The Ganguly episode was a shame. we were colonised for 300 years and people like More would love to remain as slaves to the Goras. Ravi Shastri is the best choice alongwith Mohinder Amarnath. mohinder had the grit and was india's best player of Fast bowling . get these guys. nothing is wrong with our cricket we need none like Chappell for heaven's sake

Cricket World Cup 2007
For India and Pakistan , it was a Cricket World COUP 2007 !!!!

I believe that the element missing in the whole indian team is Self belief and application of abilities to the best of their ability. May be someone like Steve Waugh can be a better help here. Its not tallent that is wanting but application, adaptability and self belief.

Hi,
The Indian team at current is just star based, and not performance based at all. Otherwise how does one explain someone like Virendra Sehwag consistently getting a chance to play, inspite of literally throwing his wicket away matach after match ? Same is the case with guys like Yuvraj, and even Sachin for that matter. He may have put in 17 years for the game, representing India, but hasnt the game given him back more than what he has put in ? In fact I was an admirer of Sachin, who used to let his bat silence his critics, but this time round even he has reverted back to using his tongue rather than the bat. And what does one say of Ganguly, Yuvraj and Dhoni. A fifty in one match is typically folloewd by a slump. How very pathetic for Team India. And when a person pointsd this out, he is hounded by all akin - the media, the players, the public. A coach cannot and should not be held repsonsilbe if the playing XI goof up on the filed big time - A coach doesnt score runs, take wickets, pluck out catches for the team. The players do. And by the way, we are talking of one of the most formidable lineup in international cricket. Are they children to be taught the very basics of the game? Even if they had followed their basics , India would have painted a far better picture in the World Cup. Batsmen playing on,chipping the ball straight to fielders as if giving catching practise, failing to get the bat down in time, failing to sight the ball, lack of feet movement, playing away from the body .. these are all basic mistakes which have been comitted by the team. No coach can instill self responsibility in players. It has to come from within... if it does not, then even the best coaches cannot help them , and I am talking of the likes of Chappel,Whatmore, Moody ( as coaches ) etc.

When the team wins, it's the players who are praised. But when it looses, the coach is the one who is blamed. The truth is that whoever is gonna be appointed the coach, India ain't gonna improve. The Indian players are a bunch of over- paid,over-hyped egos.If anthing needs to be done, it's revamping the whole system, axing the players who do not perform. If you pick players like Sehwag and Tendulkar who haven't performed in the past few years and who ain't team players, how do you expect the team to win. Get rid of all the old bunch and get some new blood into the team, youngsters who are really super fit and are capable of doing the job.

Indian cricket is in total mess.Horrible coach(thank god he is gone now), over rated cricketers,board officials planning strategies for making money for the board rather than win mathes for the country.Every one is to be blamed.On the top of this the cold war between the players, board and the captain.It is apparent nobody cares the feelings of cricket lovers who keep the game alive by pouring their hard earned money directly or indirectly into the game.Shame on the cricketers and the board officials. Do they understand that the money spent for expensive personal things that they use and the highfi life style that they lead also comes from the pockets of coolies and rickshaw pullers? There is only one way to end this nonsense and make these fellows concentrate on game and try to win mathes. People shopuld not go to stadiums to watch matches.This is the only shock treatment that will work.

While taking a logical angle to all of this is an ok approach, I would not entirely rule out a racist subtext to Chappell's behavior... A less polite analysis would examine whether Mr. Chappell thought he was a latter-day Lord Conrwallis. Cornwallis may be a legend in India, but let's not forget that he abjectly lost America by sheer dint of arrogance.

Ed,
How nice of you old chum. A racist subtext? He just wanted the team to win. Well written though.

Chappell 's failure as a coach was due to over experimenting. We did not have fixed batting order or a bowling side as we went into the world cup. Australia is great because their batting order is established and each player is committed to the task ahead and lives up to expectation. We should have struck with Tendulkar and Gangully as openers with Sehwag batting at Number 5. Also we needed someone with passion like Sreesanth to open the bowling. Agarkar and Harbhajan went through the bowling, routinely rather than as wicket takers. For ODI's we definitely need a Left arm spinner, preferably an all rounder, who can bowl like Vinoo Mankad or Nadkarni. All these factors should have been finalized long before we reached world cup. may be during the S.African tour. So the blame for failure goes to the Indian selectors, Coach and the Captain for their short sightedness. A team should play like well oiled machine by world cup rather than carry on experimenting during the world cup. Instead of trying to find scapegoats for the team failure we should try to find a solution to the current problem. Post mortem should be objective. For a country with over a billion people if we cannot find a group of 15 good cricketers, then look at our neighbours Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who did better than us with all the poverty and small population. In fact Sri Lanka is fighting for the cup as we speak. So let us plan ahead and learn from our failures. A coach can only train players. It is up to the players to produce the results jointly. India failed in bowling, batting and fielding. Even with a modest total against Bangladesh we should have won if our bowlers bowled spiritedly. We gave too many runs against Sri lanka at the end. Again poor bowling. We need to focus on batting, bowling and fielding. Fighting ability against odds is essential factor in victories. So tough mental attitude is a big factor too. A coach can help here to a large extent by building this confidence. Did Chappell do it?

ok mukul..since you have the market cornered for analysis of Greg Chappell's contribution to the defeat,lets see you answer this.
1- Why did Kumble play - knowing he hadnt played ODI (he was third choice for the last 1 year) and knowing he was close to retirement, Dravid choose him over Pawar (the best ODI spinner in India for the last 1 year). Was this Chappell's fault? Kumble and Harbhajan did not perform - they actually let the team down and Dravid, the players themselves and the selectors are responsible.
2- The collective failure of players like Sehwag, Sachin, Agarkar, the stupid cricket sense shown by Yuvraj (how he ran for the single I will never know), etc. Is Chappell responsible for teaching them basic cricket? the coach of an international team is there for strategy and guidance - not for basics and our teamlacked basic cricketing sense and common sense.
3- you blame pathans performance on Greg's experimentation - is it gregs fault that our guys cant step up to the plate? Let me ask you this - you write articles- now if I ask you to be a radio /tv host (and you become pretty good at it) should you forget how to write?
I think its retarded that we blame the coach. People like Gavaskar talk so much but what have they done? we lost a home series to SA in Kapils time..yet people keep saying an Indian coach would be the best.
Until we correctly analyze the blame, we will never improve and as long as people like you choose to blame the 'white man', our performances will remain sub-par.

Based on everything's that been written on this page,including Mukul's piece (that sounds biased and insecure) I think that Rohan Shastri's views are the most intelligent. Like him, I'm mystified how few people can see thru Ganguly's selfishness. And i agree that Chappell could have been one of the greatest things to happen to Indian cricket, if the stars and the media hadn't hounded him out. Because Chappell, like no one else before him, was trying to fix the root cause of India's problems. But I believe not many of us (including so called intellectuals like Mukul) were bright enough to pick this up.