Sourav Ganguly Didn't Want To Work Hard, He Just Wanted To Be In The Team As Captain - Greg Chappell

Greg Chappell, the former India coach, continues to inflame his and former captain Sourav Ganguly‘s controversial relationship by saying that the left-hander didn’t want to work hard on his individual game, but only wished to remain the skipper of the side to have the control.

Despite Ganguly himself recommending Greg Chappell for the coach’s job, both had a sour relationship during the Australian’s tenure as the coach from 2005, which ended in an early group stage exit from the 2007 World Cup.

4 months into his tenure, Greg Chappell’s and Ganguly’s feud went public and the latter was later sacked from captaincy and dropped from the team altogether. While the left-hander made his return but made it into the World Cup squad, his association with the Australian has always remained controversial.

“The two years in India were challenging on every front. The expectations were ridiculous. Some of the issues were around Sourav being captain. He didn’t particularly want to work hard. He didn’t want to improve his cricket. He just wanted to be in the team as captain, so that he could control things,” Greg Chappell said while speaking on the Cricket Life Stories podcast.

“Ganguly was the one who approached me about coaching India. I had other approaches but I decided that since John Buchanan was coaching Australia I would love to coach the most populous, fanatical cricket country in the world, and that opportunity came about because Sourav, who was the captain, made sure that I did.”

I decided that I did not need that kind of stress: Greg Chappell

Speaking about why he refused to continue further as the coach, the former Australia captain said he felt animosity from other senior Indian players of the team. He asserted that since the players felt insecure about their positions in the side, they spoke against him in the dressing room and in the media as well.

“Dravid was really invested in India becoming the best team in the world. Sadly not everyone in the team had the same feeling. They would rather concentrate on being in the team. There was some resistance from some of the senior players because some of them were coming to the end of their careers. When Sourav got dropped from the team, we had a lot of attention from the players, because they realized if he can go, anyone can go.”

“We had a great 12 months, but then the resistance got too much, Ganguly came back into the team. The message from the players was loud and clear ‘We don’t want change.’ Even though the board offered me a new contract, I decided that I did not need that kind of stress,” the 72-year-old stated.

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