Former Indian cricketer Virendar Sehwag recalled a heated argument he had with former Indian head coach Greg Chappell. The aggressive batter, who is known for his hand-eye coordination rather than feet moment when going through a bit of a lull, was reminded by Chappell to move his feet. However, Sehwag would respond sternly with an answer saying he already had 6000 runs under his belt as a Test player at an average over 50 in his career then.
“Make sure you score, or I’ll drop you,” recalled Sehwag what Chappell said to him during The Life Savers Show. The Indian opener would go on to make 184 runs in the game and tell the then skipper, Rahul Dravid: ‘Tell your coach not to come near me.”
Irfan Pathan on Chappell
Chappell’s tenure as the coach of the Indian team has had its fair share of ups and downs. While a few players underperformed, somehow managed to become better cricketers under him. The former all-rounder Irfan Pathan revealed about Chappell’s coaching style and his dressing room conversations with him.
“He had his way of treating seniors and juniors with the same respect. But in that, he would be a bit more aggressive than one would like. He would tell anyone that if they don’t perform, they will be dropped. I realised it was too aggressive, and once I talked to him privately about it,” Irfan said, speaking on Lallantop.
“I told him that we already know what you keep saying about being dropped. You don’t need to tell us. It is causing insecurity in the team. He looked at me for a while, got a bit upset and threw some choicest of words, but then he realised I was right,” said Irfan.
“If I go to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or England as a coach, and if I don’t accept their culture, would their players accept me? Greg Chappell’s intention was right, but he wanted to bring an Australian culture. He wanted us to play hard cricket and didn’t care what background anyone came from. But you can certainly do it in a much better way,” said Irfan.
