The animosity between Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell has been well documented. Ganguly had brought in Chappell as a replacement for John Wright and what unfolded next has become a legend in itself and has been analyzed from every point of view.
Equations soured between the two, which led to Ganguly not only losing his captaincy, but also his place in the side in 2005 and Rahul Dravid taking over. Chappell had even sent a message to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), regarding his displeasure of working with Ganguly. Chappell said that Ganguly was ‘physically and mentally’ unfit to lead India.
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Ganguly just couldn’t let go of it, though he managed to stage a brilliant comeback in 2006-07, before calling time on his career in 2008. He has shown his dislike for the Australian legend numerous times in interviews and in his autobiography as well.
“Because of Greg Chappell, the dressing room was divided. Rahul Dravid is such type of a person who wants that everything goes smoothly. He knew that things were going wrong, but he had no courage to revolt and tell him (Chappell) that he was doing wrong,” Ganguly said in an interview.
“Obviously, whatever happened with me a year ago in Zimbabwe and the kind of furor that followed any captain would think that I peacefully play cricket which is right also. But if your coach has been committing mistakes after mistake,” he stated.
Chappell’s tenure came to an end after the debacle that was the 2007 World Cup, when despite making the first-ever score of over 400 in the history of the tournament against Bermuda, India lost to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and crashed out of the World Cup in the group stage itself.
Recently, a video has resurfaced in which Ganguly is seen having a heated conversation with Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell. Ganguly is animated as only he can be, while Dravid is listening patiently, giving his inputs, while Chappell tries to interject in between, despite Ganguly continuing on.
Check out the video here:
