The BCCI has brought an end to the ugly episode of the Captain-Coach spat during its Review Committee meeting in Mumbai. The whole drama lasted for almost 4 hours and was attended by the Review Committee consisting of Sunil Gavaskar, Srinivas Venkatraghavan, Ravi Shastri, Board President Ranbir Singh Mahendra, Board Secretary S.K.Nair, Jagmohan Dalmiya, Greg Chappell, Sourav Ganguly, the Manager on the Zimbabwe tour Amitabh Choudhury and the team physio John Gloster. The outcome was expected – both Ganguly and Greg Chappell asked to patch up and work together for the better interest of Indian Cricket. It was a diplomatic outcome which meant that there were no losers. According to the BCCI President, Ranbir Singh Mahendra, the Review Committee didn’t find any truth in the allegations put up by Chappell in his mail about Ganguly faking his injuries. He added that it was a case of miscommunication. Ganguly came up with all the necessary fitness certificates of his injuries in the past. Gloster was asked to provide his reports about Ganguly’s injuries and in general his fitness regime.
Looking at how things have gone by, Ganguly’s performance in the upcoming home series against Sri Lanka in late October would be the decider of his career. It would be very interesting to see how Greg Chappell and Ganguly work together in the next few days. India has a busy international schedule with home series against Sri Lanka followed by another home series against South Africa and then they tour Pakistan. The BCCI had made a statement that the Captain and the Coach need to work out mutually and have a professional relationship. It went on to add that for this the performance will be the criteria and that this applies to the captain as well as the coach and any player.
This infamous Ganguly-Chappell spat all started in public when Ganguly after hitting a century at Bulawayo disclosed to the media that he was asked to step down from leading the side. It was soon known that it was Greg Chappell, the Coach who had asked Ganguly to step down. After what looked like a temporary patch up with Chappell reading out a formal statement that he had asked Ganguly to do so only to motivate him ahead of the Test Match, things only became hot after the conclusion of the Test Series. A Bengali newspaper had reported that Chappell had emailed the BCCI a 6 pages report of how Ganguly was unfit mentally and physically to lead India. The mail had serious allegations on the skipper that he had faked his injuries in the past and that he was selectively causing trouble to middle order batsmen in the side by pushing them up and down the batting order in crucial games just to secure his place in the squad. Chappell cited examples of this by mentioning about how Laxman came up to him and asked him whether it was true that he had told Sourav that he (Laxman) wasn’t good enough to be in the Test Side now. Chappell’s mail was published in many news channels and publications and it’s only secondary on how it was leaked to the media. It was then the team manager Amitabh Choudhury who told that Ganguly couldn’t have any scan to his injured elbow because there was no MRI facility available in Mutare – the venue for the warm up 3-day game ahead of the 1st Test and that Ganguly never missed out a single practice session on the tour. Harbhajan added fuel to the fire by coming out in the open and blamed Chappell for all this turmoil and went onto support his skipper as the person who had changed Indian Cricket to the better.
With the issue now thrown out of the window, all eyes would be on the home series against Sri Lanka starting from October 25. Both Sourav and Chappell have a lot to prove to their critics in this series for sure!