By ICF Staff
September 24 2005

Two days after saying that he respected the Indian captain and looked forward to working with him in the future, Greg Chappell has fired off a damning missive against Ganguly to the BCCI bosses. Chappell was on his way back to India, but decided to dash off a 6-page email to the BCCI top brass consisting entirely of complaints about his fellow team manager, Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, before he got there. Although it was supposed to be confidential, a BCCI insider revealed its contents to the media.

He is also said to have added that if Ganguly is retained in the Indian team, he would be forced to leave.

The reasons for such an over-the-top action are unclear, only two days after he announced to the media, "Sourav and I share a mutual respect going back a long time. Thankfully, it is strong enough to survive what has occurred in the past week. I have great respect for what Sourav has achieved in his playing and captaincy career and look forward to working with him in the future."

From the viewpoint of Ganguly, and indeed the team, this appears to be betrayal most foul.

Indeed, Chappell never had the authority vested in him in the first place to select team captain, although it was indiscreet of Ganguly to admit to the media that he was asked to step down, however much they may have pestered him.

Chappell's brief was to work with the captain appointed by the selectors as needed to improve team performance. If he indeed made all the suggestions to the BCCI President mentioned in the media report on his infamous email, then he has overstepped his bounds.

Even if Ganguly gets replaced, after watching this incident the new captain will rightly feel threatened by the coach and that is not the right mindset for a captain. In cricket it is the captain who is in charge of the team, with coach remaining in the background as support.

Chappell's attitude shows that he intends to be a non-playing captain of sorts. That is just not done in cricket, where the buck stops with the captain. If he can't abide by the selectors' decision of appointing Ganguly as captain, the correct course would have been to discuss input with the selectors when he returned to India after the completion of the tour.

To publicly humiliate India's winningest captain in this manner is the work of people with no values. This is not to implicate Chappell, although he comes off as less than straightforward, but the leakers in the BCCI and the journalists who made the details of the conflict public.

Chappell has said that his only goal is to improve the standard of Indian cricket and to help the team win the 2007 World Cup. While nobody can argue with such a noble goal, the means is equally as important.

Chappell's reported method of motivating players by instilling fear of insecurity can only bring transitory benefits. It is important that players work with a free mind; they should never be motivated in a negative manner. Understanding individuals is critical -- human touch and personal rapport can work wonders where the stick cannot.

Chappell's training methods are debatable. The drill sargeant routine may work on a few, but unless it is also backed up by great respect, loyalty and faith it can only create resentment in the vast majority of players. And resentment is to winning what daylight is to a vampire.

Chappell's threat to quit if Ganguly is retained amounts to blackmail of sorts. Such ultimatums have no place in the conduct of professionals. Working with the team, getting to know them and understand them, motivating them positively, and working with them instead of against them is how he should have gone about building a winning team.

What happens from here on is anybody's guess, given the cauldron of BCCI politics and the fact that its composition, as well as that of the selectors, is in the process of changing.

Indian cricket is not well-served when there are controversies raging in both the administrative body and the team management. The sooner this is resolved the better, but neither coach nor captain nor BCCI has given any indication of settling the issue in a mature manner.

It is ironical that this controversy should come in the wake of an overwhelming Test series win outside the subcontinent, something that should have been a happier occasion for Indian cricket. The coming days and weeks promise an interesting, if messy, conclusion of this soap opera.