An open letter to Greg Chappell

[Vijay Arumugam]

The wait is over. The bookmakers can windup their betting monkeyshines away from Indian cricket. The results are out. The winner is the quintessential Greg Chappell of South Australia and Australia. Let us congratulate the former Australian captain for being selected as the coach of Indian cricket team nay BCCI’s cricket team (Am I politically correct?). What can he bring from Adelaide Oval to the maidans of Mumbai and Kolkata? He might not have the credentials of his elder brother (Ian Chappell) in terms of thought process, knowledge and leadership skills. But he is still a very good candidate in every angle. But Greg will claim that he was a better batsman than his elder brother and let us not get into this.

As a cricket fan I thought of writing this open letter to the coach of Indian cricket team.


Dear Greg,

I am not the greatest management on earth to suggest you the ways and means to run the Indian cricket. As everyone is entitled to give his/her opinion I thought of giving my two cents to you.

Indian cricket team is a wonderful bunch of talented and successful cricketers. They have some terrific batsmen, strong spinners and a bunch of hard working fast bowlers. But Indian cricket lacks mental strength, ability to raise to the occasion, ruthless force to decimate the opposition without giving a second chance, consistency, lack of passion to climb higher and higher and so on. There are some individuals who have larger than life images and rightly so. There is a grain of truth in what Hayden said about Indian cricket a few summers ago. Yes. There are a few individuals who play a bit of selfish cricket from time to time.

Please talk to the individuals (Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble) who thought that Moody was the right choice since he had some supposed bowling credentials. They should not have any baggage from their recent mutterings if the media reports are to be believed. It was well known that the Kent experience of Rahul in 2000 which made him support John Wright 5 years ago and rightly so. He shouldn’t feel let down after this and please make sure he feels comfortable with your modus operandi.

Please advise BCCI whether India needs a bowling coach or not. When India played the first test at Gabba in 2003 we bowled a wrong length on the first day to leave Australia at 2/262. Everyone knows that Reid and you had a pep talk with the Indian team that evening and the result was evident to all and sundry the next day. Ajit Agarkar started and then Zaheer ran through the Aussie side like a hot knife through the Swiss cheese. Can you handle this without the help of a bowling coach? Please talk to BCCI and Saurav right away to take a quick decision on this. Since we have important tours to South Africa and England before the 2007 WC and we might need a versatile bowling coach if you and Saurav believe we need one.

Please get yourself accustomed to the rudimentary Indian selection processes and politics. You need to talk to Kiran More and his staff to understand the rationale behind their operations. Please get yourself involved in Indian domestic cricket, U-19 team and A team so that you will know the talent bank and the related information which are critical in planning for the Indian cricket’s future.

Indian cricket is meandering along since the heady days of Adelaide 2003, Multan 2004 and Rawalpindi 2004. It is a case of success going to the head of few individuals and resting on laurels. How are you planning to arrest this aspect? In my opinion the individuals need to be given high individual targets which will test their resolve and verve so that they will strive hard to achieve the same.

Fitness and injuries are two important banes of Indian cricket. There are some individuals (Ashish Nehra is a prime example) who get injured and they get selected when they are not match fit. They get injured again when they are about to get match fit and so on. This vicious cycle has to be stopped. Please bring transparency to the interaction between the player, captain, coach, physio and the physical trainer. No player should be allowed to hide injuries to get into the XI. One famous Indian great traveled with the Indian team from Bangalore to Nagpur in 2004 though he was not fit enough to play. He might be our cricket god but when it comes to team selection it has to be fair and square. The nonsense of bowling a few Mickey mouse deliveries before the start of the game in the glare of electronic media in the name of “selection trial” should be pushed into abyss. The players need to play a competitive game to prove their fitness even if their last names resemble Dravid or Kumble. There is one catch to this. When India plays international cricket at home there won’t be any domestic games and to overcome that BCCI needs to organize their domestic cricket in a better way to help the national team’s cause.

Please make sure a specialist is appointed as a media Liaison from the team’s angle. It is a well known fact that a certain set of Indian players have this wrong habit of leaking the minutes of team meetings to their favored reporters the day before the game which will include details such as team composition, strategy etc. This habit has to be stopped right away. To me this is equivalent of an employee giving the corporate secrets to others. The appointment of a media liaison from the team as well as BCCI will go a long way to give a panacea to this particular ill of Indian cricket.


Indian cricket has hit the nadir in terms of outfielding and slip catching. The tunnel is long and winding without any light in sight in this aspect. You can improve the aspect of Indian slip fielding giving your pedigree in your playing days. Who can forget the way you made Lennie Pascoe and Jeff Thompson stand in the slips at Trent Bridge in 1977 during the English tour just to make them understand the importance of slip fielding. Any such adventurous moves are welcome as long as we have a well settled combination of slip fielders in the class of Ian Chappell, Greg Chapell and so on. India needs to have strong slip fielders against pace and spin especially when we play at home. We also need to develop specialists for forward short leg and silly point in the mould of Eknath Solkar. For one day internationals we need specialists at short mid wicket, short cover and so on. Please make sure the throwing methods of Indian fielders from outfields are up to date. Please make sure that the skipper is serious in his fielding efforts and he needs to lead the team in that aspect too. Please make sure the Indian team members take care of their fitness levels during the off season time frame. In this day and age it is important that Indian cricketers maintain their diet and other activities even when they are on vacation. It is not fair to have oversized and unfit cricketers representing India.


Please make sure no Indian cricket runs away from an adverse situation. They should be made to fight it out for the nation in the heat of the battle. Indian cricket is littered with stories of how various batsmen have run away from fast bowling when it is directed towards their bodies. Who can forget the way Mohammad Azharuddin ran away from Marshall and Ambrose in 1989 in the Caribbean? Who will forget the way Sadagoppan Ramesh feigned an injury to excuse himself from the tour of South Africa in 2001? Who can forget the way Virender Sehwag tried to get himself out when Brett Lee bowled a few rib snorters to him in the group game of WC 2003 at Centurion in that humiliating defeat? We don’t want to see such scenarios repeated in the future. If anyone has an attitude problem he should be dropped irrespective of his surname.

Please make sure that the captain is a performer first and then the leader. You were given a lot of credit for that wonderful 144 scored by Saurav Ganguly at Gabba in 2003 and one is hopeful of seeing such performances from everyone henceforth. May be you can follow the Aussie trait of selecting the best XI and then selecting a captain out of that pack.

Please make sure Indian cricket is devoid of couple of bad habits namely excessive appealing and over rate. Someone like Anil Kumble should be told in no uncertain terms not to jump like a jack in the box every time the ball hits the pads. The Indians need to show more diligence in handling the over rate situation which is becoming quite an embarrassment of late.

Please make sure that the Indians have lofty goals and targets inscribed in their minds. May be you can put the pictures of the balconies of Oval (Tour of England in 2006), Centurion (Tour of South Africa in 2005 and hopefully the final test will be played there) and Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados (World cup finals in 2007) in the dressing rooms and challenge them to be pictured in those edifices with the spoils of the wins and beaming smiles. Let them start their “Mission endeavor” towards Oval, Centurion and Kensington Oval from this moment. Let them feel passionate about it. Let them yearn to win those coveted trophies.

(To be continued in the next post)

[Vijay Arumugam]

(Continued from the previous post)


Finally let us not forget the people of India. The billion strong population is the strongest and the most deserving stakeholders in the Indian cricket and her fortunes. They might not be the best behaved like the ones who fill the stands of Sydney and Edgbaston. But they are as passionate as the ones who fill up Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro or the River plate stadium in Buenos Aires. They simply eat, sleep and drink cricket. Please understand the attitude of Indian fans can’t be equated to the ones in United States or Australia or the ones who support Toronto Blue Jays (you should know as your offspring Jon Chappell used to play there). They might not have the economic well being to buy cricketing souvenirs for hundreds of rupees/dollars as they do in the Western world. I can give a couple of examples from my daily experiences. There is one narrow road called Jones Road in one nondescript area called Saidapet in Chennai in India. There used to be one balloon seller who was in his early teens in 1999. I have spoken to him a few times since he used to sell his wares in front of a eye clinic. He used to make hardly INR 50 (US $1.16) per day for his living. But he will stop selling balloons when Sachin Tendulkar bats for India in any international game and he will try to get the glimpse of action courtesy of any of the TV sets on display in any of the nearby stores. When I advised him not to do that he told me “Namma thalaivar aadathilae enakku boni aaganumnu thevayae illai” (English translation : When our leader (A Tamil way of showing respect to anyone who is adored) bats there is no need to sell anything or make money). He smiles when Sachin hits Warne out of the ground. To me he epitomizes the normal Indian cricket fan (no disrespect to the relatively well off connoisseurs who sit and watch the game from the air-conditioned comforts of their living rooms). He might not know where his next meal comes from. But he is made to smile and feel proud of his nation because of your boys. Please make sure your boys play well with pride to make such fans happy. Please understand that the mood of the nation is dependent on the performance of your boys in the cricket field. They should understand that the happiness of various sets of people from the pot carrying women of SriGanga Nagar in Rajasthan to the weavers of Murshidabad in West Bengal depend on their performance. They need to put up a fight for them. Even if they go down let them go down with guns blazing.

I would like to point out something to you on a lighter vein. Thank God you were not the coach of India when we played Pakistan in the fourth ODI at Ahmedabad in 2005 when Sachin bowled that final delivery to Inzamam. I know you might have asked him to do an encore of Trevor Chappell a la Sydney 1981. That would have definitely derailed the peace process between India and Pakistan!! No such antics Greg (With my tongue firmly on my cheeks!)!! All the very best from the bottom of my heart.

All the very best for your association with the Indian cricket team. We are firmly behind you and Saurav on your(our) future assignments.

Jai Hind (English translation : Victory to India).

Your sincerely,

Vijay (An Indian who is thirsting to see our cricketers stand in the podiums of Oval, Centurion and Kensington Oval with trophies).

[Zainub]

Vijay,

That made a very plesant read. Your passion is admirable I'm wondering though if you still believe Saurav Ganguly is the man to take India forward. Is Rahul Dravid's going to take India’s team to more places than just Sri Lanka (where he'll lead India initially untill Ganguly's ban is over) ? Personally I don't think I can see a role for Saurav Ganguly in India's batting order unless he undergoes some dramatic change of fortunes then he has been in the recent past. What do you think?

[rineet]

That was an honest and an interesting letter to read. It will be good if you can make this letter actually reach Greg Chappell through his website(if it exists) or by some other means. Being a Chennaite,it was thoroughly enjoyable to read the examples you have mentioned and I salute your passion for Indian cricket!

[Zainub]

Greg Chappell does have a website.

www.chappellway.com