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Before the bitter wrangling between Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell, the Indian cricket team’s captain and coach, respectively, in 2005-07, the biggest controversy in Indian cricket probably involved Lala Amarnath. In 1936, on the tour of England, the irrepressible all-rounder had serious differences with the then Indian captain, the Maharajkumar of Vizianagaram, or Vizzy as he was called, and was sent back home.
A dozen years later, Amarnath against lost his place in the team playing the West Indies because he had vicious arguments with Antony de Mello, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). For his pugnacious attitude, Amarnath was dubbed the ‘stormy petrel’ during his playing career. Neither Ganguly nor Chappell have earned sobriquets for their openly hostile relationship, possibly because Indian fandom didn’t know who to support, for each seemed to have valid reasons for being piqued by the other. Both men were known to be tough-as-nails competitors and unabashedly individualistic in their thinking.
Now, the man considered the God of Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, has tilted fully on the side of Ganguly – and others who presumably were at the receiving end of Chappell’s questionable team tactics. In his book, Playing It My Way, excerpts of which have appeared in the press in the days leading to its launch, we find the reticent Tendulkar of his playing days giving way to an emotional Tendulkar who has carried his hurts and his indignations all this while. He not only talks about his own personal feelings at being criticised by the media and fans towards the end of his career, particularly with headlines like ‘Endulkar’, but, more importantly, about the divide that Chappell brought in the ranks of the Indian team. Tendulkar has revealed how the Australian approached him at home some time before the 2007 World Cup with a plan for him to take over from Ganguly’s replacement at the helm, Rahul Dravid.
The extract reads: "I was surprised to hear the coach not showing the slightest amount of respect for the captain, with cricket's biggest tournament just months away. I rejected his proposition outright. He stayed for a couple of hours, trying to convince me, before finally leaving. A few days after Greg had come to my house, I suggested to the BCCI that the best option would be to keep Greg back in India and not send him with the team to the World Cup.”
We would never have expected Tendulkar to be so vocal given his rather quiet ways about the team and politics when he was part of the playing squad. But a year into retirement, he ceases even to be a politician, which he is as member of the Rajya Sabha, and pulls no punches when hitting out at Chappell. He hasn't done a disservice to Indian cricket. This was an issue that needed some clarification, and information of sorts has come from the master batsman.
But Ganguly himself had already hinted at how Tendulkar leant those days. Speaking to a Bengali television channel in November last year, the former captain has said that Tendulkar had stood by him during the fracas. A translated version of Ganguly’s comments, as distributed by news agency IANS, had him remarking, “When I was dropped, I thought it was a fight between Chappell and Ganguly. When I returned to the Indian team after months, I found it was Chappell versus everyone. There was a battle of nerves between Sachin and Chappell.”
Chappell also perhaps found Dravid, the new captain, quiet but firm, and wanted Tendulkar in place, little knowing that the giant of Indian cricket was too much of a team man to rock the boat. After all, Tendulkar had had a tilt at captaincy, and had not enjoyed it much, having achieved little to boast about. By this time, Chappell had alienated senior players like VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh. The truth -- if Tendulkar’s version be the truth, and why would anyone doubt it? – about the simmering tensions in the team and the reasons for them is now out
Despite the bad blood within the squad, Chappell’s India did pretty well, with a record run of 17 ODIs wins while chasing as well as a Test series win in the West Indies. Team Blue also found young stars under the Australian’s tenure, including S Sreesanth and Dinesh Karthik.
Sachin Tendulkar unveils autobiography
