File photo of Sourav Ganguly© AFP
The Sourav Ganguly-Greg Chappell saga is an infamous one and the Indian cricket board president opened up about being dropped when the Australian was India’s head coach. Ganguly, a former India captain and currently the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president, said that he was dropped from the team for reasons beyond his “batting and bowling capabilities” and that it was not something he could control. However, he said it was not a mistake to appoint Chappell the head coach as one doesn’t know when taking such a decision as to how it would turn out.
“Again, this is an after-thought. When you appoint someone, you appoint someone. Then if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. That’s the way life is. So I don’t consider it a mistake,” Ganguly said in an interview to The Telegraph about Greg Chappell.
Ganguly had to go back to domestic cricket before making a comeback for the national side.
“I don’t think playing domestic cricket was tough but the entire situation was tough because it was something beyond my batting and bowling capabilities. So I couldn’t control that,” Ganguly said.
However, he said he looked at his time out of the team as “a break”.
“I played for India for 13 years without a break before that. I hadn’t missed anything, not a series or tour. I hadn’t taken any rest like a lot of the players do now. So I consider those 4-6 months as a break from my career after those 13 years in an overall career of 17 years at the international level,” the former India skipper said.
Promoted
Reminded of his high ranking among ODI batters when he was dropped from the 50-over format, Ganguly reiterated that it proved his point that he was taken out of the team for reasons beyond his abilities.
“Can you imagine No.4 in the rankings and most number of runs in the world in those 10 years! And yet I was not considered… That’s why I said it was just beyond batting and bowling,” he said.
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