Tendulkar vs Chappell: Here's what Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and others said

A sneak peek into Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography on Monday sent shockwaves through the Indian cricket fraternity.

In his book ‘Playing It My Way’ that is to be released on Wednesday, Tendulkar wrote, “Chappell wanted to replace me with [Rahul] Dravid as India captain in 2007.” Tendulkar also called the controversial former India coach a “ringmaster”. “Just months before the (2007) World Cup, Chappell had come to see me at home and, to my dismay, suggested that I should take over the captaincy from Rahul Dravid,” Tendulkar writes. “Anjali (Tendulkar’s wife), who was sitting with me was equally shocked to hear him say that ’together, we could control Indian cricket for years’, and that he would help me in taking over the reins of the side. “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. He stayed for a couple of hours, trying to convince me, before finally leaving.” What Greg Chappell had to say:

Appointed coach of the Indian cricket team in May 2005, Chappell had a controversial stint Chappell fell out with Tendulkar when he tried to tinker with the latter’s batting position. After being told of Tendulkar’s comments, Chappell stated his own version of events: “The claims made in Sachin’s new book were brought to my attention earlier today,” Chappell told cricket.com.au. “Whilst I don’t propose to get into a war of words, I can state quite clearly that during my time as Indian coach I never contemplated Sachin replacing Rahul Dravid as captain. Former India captain Sourav Ganguly backed Tendulkar:

“I really don’t want to go back to that period, you have seen it in the results. [It was] one of worst phases of Indian cricket and worst phase a cricketer can go through, especially someone like me. There were lies after lies and six months later he wanted Rahul removed and Sachin as captain. This goes on to show how the man went about his job. “When I came back to the team [after the 2007 World Cup], I had spoken to Dravid about that much later and told him that these were the things going on. He said he knew it all but ‘couldn’t control Greg’.” Asked to throw some light on Tendulkar claiming in his book that Chappell once told him “I have got the job because of Sourav but that did not mean he was going to do favours to Sourav for the rest of his life”, Ganguly asked, “Is it? “I haven’t heard about that before. This must be closed door discussion between Chappell and Sachin. But I presume it is true and I think it is absolutely ridiculous. “I am happy to see the way Tendulkar has written the book. Today he has done a lot of help to Indian cricket and hopefully it is an eye-opener to all. Happy that Sachin has written about true facts of that period,” he said. “I am happy that someone of Sachin’s credibility has spoken about it. I wish someday I could tell my side of the story,” Ganguly said. Harbhajan Singh also supported Tendulkar’s claims

“Chappell destroyed Indian cricket to such an extent that it required at least three years to again get back on track. The worst part was some players in that team, who sucked upto the coach and would supply selective misinformation creating bigger rifts. “There were seven guys that he wanted to get rid of. Sourav was his primary target followed by myself, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh. He was supposed to take India to the next level in international cricket. But during that phase, there was one point of time, we were playing like U-14s,” he said. Zaheer Khan too said that Chappell had agendas:

“After he was appointed the coach of the Indian team, he once came upto me and told ‘Zaheer, you will not be playing for India till I remain the coach’. I understood one thing. This man had agendas and was getting personal. He had his set ideas and if you didn’t fall in line, then you have to be prepared to fall by the wayside. He tried to finish my career but I believe I came back even stronger in South Africa during the end of 2006. “He had some issues with the senior guys in the team. He tried many ways to stop my comeback into the Indian team during the phase when I was out of the team for nearly a year. I came to know later that everytime when my name was discussed, he (Chappell) would find means to delay my comeback by 3-4 months,” added Zaheer. Rahul Dravid said it did not make much of a difference to him

“I haven’t really read the excerpts of that book. Also I am not privy to any private conversation between two individuals. I have not heard about this before and I have no idea what happened and I would not want to make any comment,” Dravid told ESPNCricinfo. “It’s been a long time and it does not make much of a difference to me now. Not looking forward towards reading this [Chappell controversy] but yes anything that Sachin writes on batsmanship and things like what made him the best in the world. I am more interested in reading those parts.”