Greg - your underarm stinks !!

Controversy is his middle name –  he scored 7110 runs in Tests and 2331 in 74 One dayers – but he is still under a mistaken impression that some are superior and can talk whatever they want to.  If he was a good player of his time, he can talk on that – but what made him blabber on Indian culture  ? – the answer could be simple ‘poking for cheap publicity in the wake of promotion for his book’ – so when he wants money, he will go down to any extent ! poor chap !!  - some of the factual comments as they were revealed over a period of time, finds a place at the end of this post and One can judge for oneself !!!

Gregory Stephen Chappell  is quoted as saying that ‘ Indian side lacked leaders because parents, school teachers and coaches made all decisions in the Indian system’ – so what they do in Australia –  taking the first decision of sending their parents to old age homes  !!  He states of Poms teaching Indians really well to keep their head down “. For if someone was deemed to be responsible, they'd get punished. So the Indians have learned to avoid responsibility. So before taking responsibility for any decisions, they prefer not to” – he is quoted as saying in a promo for his book 'Fierce Focus'.

A simple search on Aussie culture reveals that it was a land of aborgines whose sustenance was later threatened.  Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 161,700 convicts (of whom 25,000 were women) were transported to the Australian colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s land and Western Australia. Historian Lloyd Robson has estimated that perhaps two thirds were thieves from working class towns, particularly from the midlands and north of England. The majority were repeat offenders.  (search Wikipedia or any other source for this)

The biggest mistake India ever did was appointing him the Coach of the National Team on a 2 year contract in 2005.  What the highly paid coach brought was chaos, sectionism, bias and hurting the Senior cricketers including Sourav, Sachin and others.  India had their worst performance under his tenure in 2007 World Cup and fortunately he quit in Apr 2007.

The Cricketing fraternity has still not forgotten or forgiven his ‘stinking under-arm’.  It was on 1^st Feb 1981 at Melbourne – match between Australia and New Zealand.  Kiwis were chasing 235 – the good knock of Bruce Edgar got them closer – 15 required off the last over – an improbable one those days.  This loud mouthed gentleman was at the helm and his younger brother Trevor Chappel was the bowler.  Off the last delivery 6 was required to be hit – Brian McKechnie was at the strike.  With fear overtaking shame, Trevor under instructions from Greg informed the Umpire of his intention and bowled underarm.  That was his strategic move in winning the match.

First Post vividly describes the  vicious attack on Indian culture and Indian cricket team made by  Greg Chappell – his bad mouthing comes after the poor performance by India down under but how has he forgotten his losses or that of Australia ! The frustration  of not being able to make money perhaps makes him tell that ‘They can only make a lot of money playing 20-over cricket. Fifty-over cricket they can sort of put up with.” “Test cricket for a lot of teams, is pretty tough. And the challenge for Test cricket is, without the sort of grounding that we (Australians) had as kids, Test cricket is too hard.  It’s very demanding mentally, physically and emotionally,” he added.  He went on to speak about Sehwag’s ambition for captaincy hurting the team. 

There was the expected angry reaction with the former skipper who was much ridiculed by Greg – Sourav Ganguly calling the Aussie ‘mad’.  He recalled that Greg had been sacked as a selector and out of head of their academy in his own land.  The former India skipper said Chappell has proved to be a failure in every coaching-related assignment he has taken up, which is enough proof that the fault lies with him. A person can be wrong once but if he commits the same mistake again and loses his job for that, then that man to me is mad,” said Ganguly.

Indians would never play the ‘hard way’ that Aussies play and for them ‘winning might never be everything’ – most Indians howsoever passionate they are, tend to view the game as a game not as War.  By no stretch of imagination the flagging fortune can be attributed to National culture.  There were many phases when worst sportsmanship or actually lack of any spirit was the national trait of his team.  They had displayed rank boorishness at CWG and on some other occasions. 

In Nov 2011, there were reports of Greg Chappell regretting his fall out with Sachin Tendulkar – again that was in trying to promote his book when he was stated to regret of the strained relationship with the genial little master.

In June 2011, the Press quoted Zaheer Khan as stating that Chappell’s tenure was the worst phase of his career.

Not so long in Apr 2011, Greg who was Australia’s National talent manager was quoted as stating that ‘they do not have as large a talent pool as some other countries’  We’re not like India, we can’t waste talent – they can call a few fall over and there will be someone there backing them up – Greg as quoted in Sydney Morning Herald.

In Nov 2007, crying hoarse to save his skin, he blabbered to ABC that he was a victim of racist attack during his tenure as Indian coach. 

[foregoing is just a sample of his double speak and what is spoken of him]

When people speak so incoherently and inconsistently, they are called something else in India……..

With regards – S. Sampathkumar. 

With major inputs from Firstpost.com