Greg Chappell: The man who lost it all

Well, their visions never matched really

Despite years of trying, no researcher has ever been able to teach flies anything. Fishes learn, ants learn, snails learn, cockroaches learn, even worms learn but flies; no, they never learn, they just keep on buzzing around until they are swatted out.

Also the average life span of a fly is for 8 days. (Was this even required? No, not really)

Let’s carry on. So there was this man named Greg Chappell, a fine performer and a brilliant cricketer. Scored around 7,000 odd runs in test matches at an average of 54 with 21 centuries.

‘Impressive to say the least.’

The captain of the Australian cricket team and also the man who inspired his team to 3 Ashes wins during his cricketing career.

‘Very impressive indeed.’

The man who stood tall and scored 5 centuries in 14 matches against a West Indian bowling attack comprising of Garner, Holding, Roberts and Croft in the rebel World Series Championship.

‘Whoa!! That guy must be a legend then.’

The man who asked his brother Trevor to bowl an underarm ball against New Zealand, so that they can’t score the six runs required to win off the last ball.

‘The Chappell guy did that? Shameful indeed.’

Records and respect don’t go hand in hand and Greg Chappell, of all people, would be the first one to understand that. His cricketing career was legendary by itself but it was instances like the ‘underarm incident’ here and there which have tarnished his image permanently. For a person with such great cricketing acumen, it was quite natural that at some of point of time he will go on to become a coach, a selector or maybe even a talent advisor. He performed at all the three roles at different points of his administration career and sadly failed horribly in all of them. Not only did he fail badly but he also made sure that he indeed was the scapegoat that was going to be butchered at the end of it all. Be it his fiasco with Sourav Ganguly or his stint as a head coach for the Australian Centre of Excellence, he always got the acrimonious exit at the end. Did a cricketer like him deserve all of this? Most definitely, yes.

His first ‘big’ role came when he came in as the coach of the Indian cricket team in 2005 after the exit of John Wright, a position which is considered to be the toughest in world cricket right now. However, results came smoothly for him in the beginning with series wins against Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the West Indies. There was also this rise of a new left arm pace bowler named Irfan Pathan during his tenure. He used to bowl at around 140-145 km/h(something unheard of in India) and used to swing the new ball both ways. He was also tipped to be the next big thing in Indian cricket. His bowling returns were phenomenal particularly against a depleted Zimbabwe batting lineup and it was roundabout this time that Mr. Chappell forced him to believe that he could be the next No. 3 for India. Not as no.3 first change bowler but rather a No.3 front line batsman. He made him believe that he was more of a batting all-rounder to the extent that he apparently even asked him to shorten his run up. From a bowler who used to run through the opposition’s batting line up with the new ball, Pathan eventually became an Indian Michael Yardy. The result: He is out of the team for the last three years due to his poor bowling performances and is now maybe bowling to a certain Sunny Sohal in Dharamsala.

‘Did we forget someone? Or is that it?’

Oh no, wait there was a certain incident involving Sourav Ganguly as well.

So as the legend goes, Mr. Chappell asked (‘suggested’ in his own words) Sourav Ganguly to step down from the captaincy during the Zimbabwe tour. He also sent a mail to the BCCI which got leaked later blaming Ganguly for faking injuries often so as to not to face the likes of Shane Bond with the new ball. This, to a batsman who was an opener throughout his ODI career and had an illustrious batting record which boasted copious amount of runs! Mr. Chappell also added in the mail that Ganguly’s captaincy was indecisive and that he was not fit enough mentally to lead the team. Again, this to a cricketer who had taken up the captaincy during one of India’s worst phases.

At a time when match fixing was rife, Sourav Ganguly single-handedly led his team to some remarkable performances finally culminating into the 2003 World Cup final run. Also in his recent autobiography ‘Fierce Focus’, Chappell attacked Ganguly by saying “Sourav was the biggest panicker”. Now if we have a look at both of their captainship records.

Statistics

Name Matches Played Won Lost Drawn

(as captain)

Sourav Ganguly 49 21 13 15

Greg Chappell 48 21 13 14

After going through the stats one will realise that both of them have exactly identical captaincy records, and for Chappell to attack Ganguly’s captaincy is not at all justified. For one to attack another’s credentials to save his own face is absolutely uncalled for and Chappell indulged in exactly the same.

Its also because of our dear friend Mr. Chappell that Australia are facing a situational crisis right now. When he was the head coach for ACE he suggested the selectors to come up with this new policy of giving young players a chance rather than players who have performed consistently at the Shield level- which is fine but then one has got to keep a balance. So what happened was you had a bowler whose average is 44.34 and has played only 4 First Class matches making his debut in an Ashes test match. It was quite natural in Australian cricket that a 36 year old Bevan would be replaced by a 30 year old (comparatively old in sporting standards) Hussey in international cricket- that was because their selection process was like that.

Now they suddenly realise that they have a vacuum of young players good enough to play (holding the high Australian standards) in the international circuit and because of that, many of the ‘older’ players like Mark Cosgrove, Marcus North etc. got the raw deal. As soon as Chappell came into the panel he rooted for a new look team full of youngsters and when they couldn’t find good quality youth players, they royally messed up the the existing selection policies, which is the main reason why Ricky Ponting is the first player in the last 30 years of Australian cricketing history to have held his place just as a batsman after being removed as the captain of the team (because they can’t find 18-20 year old batsmen good enough to replace him at the highest level). Just wonder what happened to Brad Hodge et al? Needless to say, Chappell was unceremoniously axed from his spot soon after Ashes.

‘So, what happened to Chappell after his spat with Ganguly?’

‘Oh, that. Well he was removed from the spot after India’s debacle in the 2007 ICC World Cup’. Basically one can say his entire Indian coaching stint depended on those 8 fateful World Cup days and he failed miserably.

’8 days, mmm..now where had I heard that before?