Former Australia cricketer Greg Chappell’s tenure as India’s head coach was always surrounded by controversies. Chappell is also heavily criticized for India’s early exit in the 2007 ODI World Cup.
Former India cricketer Robin Uthappa has spent the few years of the initial phase of his career with the Indian team having Greg Chappell as the head coach. After working with him, Uthappa got a fair amount of ideas about the things that went wrong in his coaching tenure.
Uthappa accused Chappell of leaking certain information out of the dressing room and running an agenda. Although Uthappa feels that Chappell was good with younger players, he termed him as the coach who never respected Indian culture.
“Greg Chappell was running an agenda” – Robin Uthappa
During a discussion on Lallantop, Robin Uthappa was asked about the tenure of Greg Chappell as India’s head coach which led to India’s decline in cricket. Uthappa claimed that the team environment under Chappell was the worst.
He accused Chappell of running an agenda and coaching with an Aussie mindset which didn’t quite work out in India. According to Uthappa, Chappell never respected the Indian culture and had a bad habit of leaking information when things didn’t work for him.
“Uss team ka mahaul bahut kharab tha (The environment of that team was very bad). Greg Chappell was running an agenda. He was coaching with an Aussie mindset, saying, ‘This is how we do things in Australia.’ I don’t think he ever respected Indian culture. He came in and tried to bring the Australian culture,” Uthappa said.
“He also had a bad habit of leaking information when things didn’t go according to his plans. That didn’t run well with the players. He leaked dressing room information,” he added.
“Greg Chappell was very good to me” – Robin Uthappa
While Greg Chappell didn’t have a good relationship with the senior players, Robin Uthappa claimed that he was good to him as a youngster. He spoke about his mindset when he was selected to play international cricket for India.
“As a youngster, Greg Chappell was very good to me. I just entered the team. I was young, and he used to back youngsters. As a 20-year-old, a dream was to play for India, win for India, hopefully one World Cup I will win for India,” Uthappa observed.
“When you get that opportunity to play for the country, you feel like boss. You don’t need anything else. I will give everything for my team. I played with that mindset,” he added.
Uthappa also revealed that under Chappell, the concept of strength training was introduced which didn’t quite work out well for the senior players as they were not used to it. Ultimately, Chappell’s Australian way of working affected India’s overall performance.
One of India’s darkest days in cricket history
Under Greg Chappell, India were eliminated from the group stage of the 2007 ODI World Cup held in the West Indies. India suffered a shocking defeat to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the group stage and were knocked out.
The team had a no. of senior players with Rahul Dravid as the captain. Chappell was credited with changing the batting order of the team and having Sachin Tendulkar to bat in the middle order instead of opening the innings.