Greg Chappell: What they said, really meant and definitely did not

Greg Chappell Does Not Call It ‘A Clash Of Cultures’

What he said:

"The mistakes I made were not particularly ‘western’”.

Former India coach, Greg Chappell, ruminates on his failures with the Indian cricket team in his autobiography, “Fierce Focus”.

Chappell had a stormy tenure from 2005 to 2007 ending with the team’s first round exit at the 2007 ODI World Cup.

The Australian great regrets his tiff with icon Sachin Tendulkar when he insisted that the master bat revert to his No.4 position in ODIs.

Chappell wrote:

My biggest regret was falling out with Sachin over him batting at number four in the one-day team. It was a shame because he and I had some intense and beneficial talks together prior to that. My impatience to see improvement across the board was my undoing in the end.

Chappell elaborates:

The mistakes I made were not particularly ‘western’ but the same kind of mistakes I’d made as a captain in my playing days. I didn’t communicate my plans well enough to the senior players. I should have let guys like Tendulkar, (VVS) Laxman and (Virender) Sehwag know that although I was an agent of change, they were still part of our Test future.
When I did communicate with them, I was sometimes too abrupt. Once in South Africa, I called in Sachin and Sehwag to ask more of them, I could tell by the look on their faces that they were affronted.

Later (Rahul) Dravid, who was in the room, said ‘Greg, they’ve never been spoken to like that before’.

What he really meant:

“Autocrats are not an exclusively western phenomena, are they?”

What he definitely didn’t:

“Change is a one-way process.”