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| October 9, 2005 | Sunday | Ramzan 4, 1426 |
Chappell, Ganguly can resolve issues: Wright
MELBOURNE (Australia) Oct 8: Now that they’ve agreed to a truce, John Wright believes India coach Greg Chappell and national captain Sourav Ganguly will discover there’s no place like home to resolve their issues.
Preparing for a series against Sri Lanka will return the focus to performance and help galvanize the management and leadership of the team, said Wright, who quit as India coach in April.
“With any coach or new partnership (it takes) a bit of time and a bit of patience,” Wright told reporters here Saturday ahead of Sunday’s final Super Series one-day match between his World XI lineup and Australia.
“I think the boys will come together. There’s always going to be bumpy issues along the way, whenever you’re in a coaching situation.”
The rift peaked on India’s recent tour of Zimbabwe, when Ganguly revealed to the media that Chappell — a former Australia test skipper — had suggested to him he should quit as captain because he was out of form.
Ganguly waited until he’d scored a painstaking hundred against test minnow Zimbabwe to make the situation public.
Chappell responded by sending a detailed e-mail to the Indian cricket board reportedly describing Ganguly as physically and mentally unfit to lead the national team.
Contents of that e-mail were leaked to the media, further eroding the relationship between captain and coach.
Chappell and Ganguly have since assured the Indian cricket board’s performance review panel they will work together.
Wright, a former New Zealand test batsman who became India’s first foreign coach in 2001, played it straight when pressed for his analysis of the source of the feud.
“My view on any leadership issue is ... as the skipper your team needs to be winning and you need to be scoring runs,” Wright said. Picking a captain “is up to the selectors. They make those decisions and you go from there.”
In Wright’s four years as coach, India peaked at No. 2 in the test rankings and reached the World Cup final in 2003 despite having some mixed limited-overs form.
Wright said he’d been out of the job for six months and didn’t want to delve back into the inner politics of Indian cricket.
“You move on, though obviously I watch it. I wish Greg and his team every success and the players — Sourav or whoever the captain is — I hope they move forward,” he said. “I know they can play and I hope they get the results.”
Wright said he’d always stuck with his own coaching ethos, regardless of the influences in India.
“The bottom line, in my perspective as a coach, I worked in my way,” he said.
“I feel that we made progress. I don’t have anything else to add. At the end of the day, you do it the way you want to do it.”
Although, Wright did say he was pleased to see Indian cricket authorities set up a panel to review the selection process.
“I think that sounds very encouraging. I had four years with the team. I enjoyed it.—AFP
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