Former Team India Manager Asserts That Positivity Restored Amongst The Players After The Greg Chappell-Era

Greg Chappell’s tenure as India’s coach spelt one of the darkest days in Indian cricket. Not only in terms of performance but also in the aspect of unity, the men in blue found themselves broken. Chappell’s position as a coach came to an end after India exited out of the group stage in the 2007 World Cup. According to a former manager, happiness amongst the players restored after the Australian left the post.

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While Greg Chappell brought in players like MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina in the Indian team, he had a fallout with many senior cricketers. The likes of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, and Yuvraj Singh all narrated his tendency of breaking the unity between them. The same have found to be the reason behind their disastrous 2007 World Cup campaign.

Former cricketer Chandu Borde, who was appointed as the manager for the tour of England, recalled he had a challenging task at hand. When the tour of England just began, Borde called a team meeting and asked all the senior players like Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid to express their feelings and how to proceed.

“What happened, one day in England just when the tour started, I called a meeting of all the players in the morning before going to the ground. When everything was sitting, I first asked the masseur what he felt about the team. Then I moved to other players asking them what we should do. I asked Ganguly, I asked Sachin, I asked Dravid. This way I started. And I allowed them to express their feelings.” Borde stated in an interview with Sportskeeda.

“These boys respected me, they came together and India had a wonderful series” : Chandu Borde

Having called a meeting, Borde stressed on the importance of unity and asked them to play together. The former India manager kept encouraging them and eventually he earned the players’ respect. The result was India emerge victorious in a Test series in England after 21 years, winning the three-match rubber by 1-0. Chandu recalled that there was no bickering during that and felt proud of them.

“I told them what we need to do, what we want to do. You are a good bunch of boys; you must do something. That time I told them that our motto should be three Ws – ‘We will win’. These boys respected me, they came together and we had a wonderful series. We won the series, in fact after such a long time.

Lot of people did not give enough credit to our performance. I think 11 years or 21 years we had not won in England. But that series we won in 2007, I am really proud of these boys. One thing I liked about them, there was no bickering and everybody was very happy. And being a cricketer, I knew what was their requirement. I only used to have a little chat with them and pat them.” he added.

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