Ganguly didn’t work hard, only wanted to remain captain to control things: Chappell

The Sourav Ganguly– Greg Chappell saga is one of the darkest episodes in Indian cricket. Chappell was Team India’s head coach between 2005 and 2007, and his tenure was marred with controversies. While the former Australian captain had fallouts with many Indian players, his dispute with the then national captain Ganguly bagged the most limelight. The bad blood between the two even resulted in Sourav losing his captaincy and getting dropped from the side.

While it has been a decade since the controversial episode happened, Chappell has reignited the chapter by making some massive allegations against Ganguly. Calling his tenure as Team India coach challenging, the former Australian batsman claimed that Ganguly didn’t work hard and wasn’t keen to improve his game. Chappell even stated that the southpaw just wanted to remain captain to control things.

Sourav Ganguly didn’t particularly want to work hard: Chappell

“The two years in India were challenging on every front. The expectations were ridiculous. Some of the issues were around Sourav being captain. He didn’t particularly want to work hard. He didn’t want to improve his cricket. He just wanted to be in the team as captain, so that he could control things,” Chappell said while speaking on the Cricket Life Stories podcast.

The 72-year-old even recalled that his equation with Ganguly was fine once and the southpaw only approached him for the coach’s job.

“Ganguly was the one who approached me about coaching India. I had other approaches but I decided that since John Buchanan was coaching Australia I would love to coach the most populous, fanatical cricket country in the world, and that opportunity came about because Sourav, who was the captain, made sure that I did,” Chappell added.

Meanwhile, Ganguly made a comeback to the Indian team in 2006 after being dropped in 2005. He scored a bagful of runs on his return to international cricket and played some of his finest knocks over the next two years. The talismanic left-handed batsman eventually retired from international cricket in November 2008. As of now, the former Indian captain is serving as the BCCI president.