The ICC World Cup 2007, which was held in the West Indies, remains one of the most controversial and longest tournaments ever. Though Australia won their third consecutive world title, the whole tournament was hampered by poor management.
One of the biggest things that sank the tournament that year was the format of it, as it saw big teams and former champions like India and Pakistan being eliminated in the group stages itself. With just four teams in a group, there was no room to catch up if a team lost a match early on.
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Harbhajan Singh was in the Indian squad for that tournament, which happened to be the last for then coach Greg Chappell and the off-spinner called it the lowest point in his cricket career.
Talking to Aakash Chopra, Harbhajan recalled, "When Greg Chappell came as the coach of our side, he disrupted the entire team, no one knows what was his motive when he came to coach us, no one knows how to disrupt a solid team better than him, he used to do whatever he wanted.”
"2007 50-over World Cup has to be the lowest point of my career, I thought we are going through such a difficult time and I also thought that maybe it is not right time to play for India, wrong people were at the helm of Indian cricket, Greg Chappell was trying to divide and lead, he used to do such things," he added.
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He felt that India had a solid team in the World Cup 2007 but just couldn’t move past the group stages after two losses. In fact, India became the first team to cross the 400-run mark in the tournament history, when they made 413/5 against Bermuda in Port of Spain.
"We had a solid team for the 2007 50-over World Cup, we were just not able to perform as no one was in the right frame of mind, no one trusted each other, when the team is not happy then the results do not go your way. We lost to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, they were not that big teams, it was not like we lost to Australia," Harbhajan said.
(ANI inputs)
