I think, and the rest of the country too, that it was Mr. Greg Chappel who was at fault. First, he made an honest suggestion, second he sent an honest mail and third he took the blame as a liar when it should have been the other way round. Any person who has an iota of self-respect should resign as coach. Because from now on, his own comments does not matter, his decisions does not matter, his discussions does not matter. Any player from anywhere can say anything to him and get away by a simple reprimand. From now on he cannot expect Saurav to respect him or listen to him. He will be a puppet and remain so unless he decides to quit. He cannot think of changing the attitude of the Indian Cricket Team unless he commands respect. That should be the first criteria. Does he expect that the players from now on will listen to him rather than Ganguly ? Any comment he makes will be nullified, whether its about fitness or fielding or bowling. India does not need a coach anyway, as long as Ganguly and Dalmia is there. If Mr.Chappel remains, this is one decision he is going to rue throughout his life no matter what reasons he give.
Well, I remember this one match in Wankhede stadium, where it was very easy to locate Shastri on the ground while fielding.
Just listen out for "Ravi Shastri Hay Hay!".
Such was the anger of the Indian Cricket Fan, that no matter where Ravi Shastri went to play, this routine would follow him. Reason - well he was slow in scoring runs, gave away lots of runs, lost many matches as Captain, and was very boring to watch. We can excuse boring perhaps, but the rest is essential to the game.
De Ja Vu
I think the same can be expected when Ganguly takes the field in the upcoming series at home.
Ravi Shastri may very well start coaching him on how to deal with such situations, as he has been through it, not much long ago.
Scenario 1
Ganguly walks out to the bat. Audience boos him (Ganguly Hay Hay).
Ganguly avoids playing the outgoing ball or bouncers, thus he does not score or scores slowly and eventually gets out.
Scenario 2
Ganguly plays his best cricket & shuts all critics.
I think we will see Scenario 1 pretty soon. And it will be a sight to watch Ganguly walk to pavilion with his face hidden in his hand without that silly smirking grin.
But one thing which always hits me.... what can we do about anything in this country..... BCCI does what they want.... Conducted by a few bunch of jokers... very well coined by Mohinder Amarnath, they do what they want to do!
Even when they knew, that the entire country is backing Greg Chappel, they just couldn't tell Sourav to quit. Even the best of the cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and evenVenkatraghvan are afraid of Mahindra and Dalmiya.
When we performed so badly in the tri-series in ZImbabwe, there was no question on Mr. ganguly's performance... If we look at his performance then he does not deserve a place in the team.
I think we will have to lose couple of more series to make sure that we change the captain...
Indians can never be proactive... they will only react so the best we can do is wait for another couple of bad series and in the mean time a couple of more crores for the Ganguly and his non-performing team in the world of advertisement.
So.. the news is out... we will NOT win the world cup 2007.
I have read a couple of articles by this author published on rediff.com. All of us do understand the gravity of the situation the state, Indian cricket is in, at this point of time.
Sadly to compound the problems, we also have authors such as this, who write absolute rubbish that leaves a very bad taste.
I have seen an article previously where this author wrote very badly about Sourav Ganguly. I really dint understand how rediff.com published his article. It was a disgraceful piece of text. Anyone who is reasonably mature wouldnt have written in a such manner (I dont want to debate the author's knowledge about Sourav for i feel this knowledge about the game itself is very limited).
Now as the tide shifts, Arvind something, has written another attrocious one - This time about Chappel. Why? He thinks writing against Chappel is what will sell? Or he himself is a disgusting mind who moves with the tides and dont have any individuality? In both cases, he turns out to be a shame and refiff being a responsible organisation should not entertain such opinions.
Mr Arvind! Please try something else to earn your bread.
Next time it seems Ganguly will complain against Greg Chappell. This since, the BCCI now wants to evaluate performance of the Coach as well.
Chappell should be more careful in the dressing room, net practice, matches, media interviews, so that he does not get Ganguly upset (the way Ganguly got him upset). If he does, Ganguly will come back to a review committee with the team manager and provide proof that Chappell is a problem, and should be fired.
Scenario 1
But wait, De Ja Vu, the review committee will say that the team manager and Ganguly are lieing and that there has been misunderstanding, hence they have to sort out the problem themselves.
Scenario 2
De Ja Vu , but Ganguly is always right. He can do now wrong. Chappell will be fired.
I truly appreciate Lavakre's columns. Though he's a bit emotional, he speaks the truth. I don't think he' righting for sensation, but with some kinda agony and true feelings. I appreciate your writings, however, in order to impress few sections of your readers that are blind supportes(without cric knowledge) of the cric stars, I would like to suggest you putting down your hard feelings in a softer manner might make your columns more interestings. However, would you appreciate my idea of running a parallel cric board(say BHARAT CRICKET BOARD) to BCCI and obtain affiliation from ICC? :-) Because, BCCI team is not an Indian team. It's just BCCI team. They don't deserve to represent India, coz, there is no way this board reflects the interests of Indian citizens. Itz an isolated body; they have their own supremos(Dalmia), own review committes(Always Sunny), no interference of the media(not democratic) and finally Dalmai was very furious with the interference of teh civil courts in their recent board elections issue. He wants the Indian CRICKET to be his own firm. Itz not related to the Govt also. Then why don't some one else run a parallel body ;-) Appreciate ur feedback
I very much agree with the above article that the BCCI has not taken the due intrest in finding out whats is really going wrong for the poor performance of the team..
Apart from the So Called COMPROMISE MEETING held between chappel and gangully.. the BCCi could have much efficient things like taking the opinion from each team member of the Zimbabwe and Srilanka series. As a few players have expressed their experince with captain as well as the coach. The BCCI could have held a one to one meeting between eeach team member and have their views as a confidential one rather than leaking out the inside story as happened in teh email leakage ,,,,
If bcci is actually working out things in the intrest of Indian cricket, then this is definetly not the way how things should have ben handled..
This is to register my opinion against the verdict/decision taken by the BCCI in the Chappel-Ganguly affair.BCCI and its members - Mr. Dalmia,Mahender Singh the two leading figures who don't have any cricketing knowledge and the selectors comprising of Mr. Gavaskar,Shastri and Venketraghvan respected crickters of yesteryears let down Indian Cricket,its followers in the country to the extreme and had been example of bunch of best fools in cricket world.Do they think they will carry on with Gangully for how many years - 20,30,40_ _ etc? Or India don't have any another player capable of leading the side for these yesrs.Even a child can tell how Gangull's body language indicated his fear of fast bowling moreover his form also suggeted ended of the career, it is enough.If Gangully is there then why the players of the calibre of Kapil Dev,Maninder Singh,Jimmy Amarnath were forced to quit.Moreover these bunch of jokers have shown the entire world of cricket How corrupt are they,they are only after hefty money/bounty of BCCI? These fools have prefered the single voice of Ganguly against the voice of entire cricket followers? Whereas I fully support Mr. Chappel and his policy perform or van
Mr. Arvind I always admired your articles on Rediff as long as the topic / subject was Politics. But , it is utter disappointing to read your writing on Cricket. I don't understand why are u sooooo obssessed with Chapel ? What is wrong with Gangu ? U have a feeling of " Ghar ki Murgi .. Daal .. " I think u are also one of those guys who feels WHITES are always right ??? Go back to your domain of politics .... don't think u are Prem Panikar.
