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| September 28, 2005 | Wednesday | Sha'aban 23, 1426 |
Ganguly, Chappell warned by BCCI
MUMBAI, Sept 27: India’s cricket chiefs brokered an uneasy truce between captain Saurav Ganguly and coach Greg Chappell on Tuesday, sternly warning both to mend their differences for the sake of the national team.
Ganguly and Chappell agreed to “work together” after appearing separately before a high-powered panel of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), an official said.
“Indian cricket has to move forward and for that both the captain and coach have to work together and a professional working relationship has to be maintained,” BCCI president Ranbir Singh Mahendra told reporters.
“Both Chappell and Ganguly have told the committee they will work together.
“There has obviously been some miscommunication. Some of the points raised by Chappell against Ganguly about his fitness are far from the truth,” Mahendra said.
Both Chappell and Ganguly have been barred by the BCCI from speaking on the subject to the media.
Relations between the two soured on the recent Zimbabwe tour and culminated in the coach writing a confidential e-mail to the BCCI saying the captain was unfit to lead India.
The 2,334 word e-mail, which was leaked to the media, spoke of Chappell’s distrust of Ganguly, the country’s most successful captain with 21 Test wins — seven more than second-placed Mohammad Azharuddin.
The BCCI panel included three former captains, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Srinivas Venkataraghavan besides Mahendra and his powerful predecessor Jagmohan Dalmiya.
It was the same panel which appointed Chappell, the former Australian captain, as coach in June for a two-year period till the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean.
Under Chappell, India lost two one-day finals, against Sri Lanka in Colombo and New Zealand in Harare in August, before routing a weakened Zimbabwe 2-0 in the Test series earlier this month.
India are scheduled to play Test series against Sri Lanka, Pakistan, England and the West Indies, besides a minimum of 33 one-dayers, in a gruelling eight-month period from late October.
The national selectors, who had appointed Ganguly captain only for the Zimbabwe tour, will meet in mid-October to select the skipper for a seven-match one-day series against Sri Lanka from Oct 25.
The crisis boiled over on Monday when players and officials lined up to take sides, forcing Mahendra to impose a gag order amid fears of unbridgeable divisions in the national team.
Mahendra warned players of “serious consequences” if they aired their views after Harbhajan Singh announced the team had “developed a sense of insecurity due to the coach’s attitude and double standards.”—AFP
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