This time Saurav lofts Ian

This time Saurav lofts Ian
SANDEEP DWIDEDI

KOLKATA, MARCH 13: If one thought India’s first day heroics could have lightened captain Saurav Ganguly’s mind then one is sadly mistaken. The local hero, after leading India’s fightback on field, burdened himself by jumping into another war, this time in a wordy duel, as he confronted former Aussie great Ian Chappell over his comments in a leading daily here.

Chappell’s allegations about Ganguly’s rudeness to his teammates were front-paged on the eve of the Eden Gardens Test and the very next day the Indian captain’s sharp counter-attack was once again prominently displayed on page one by the same daily.

Questioning the credibility of Chappell’s comments, Ganguly went on to add that the Aussie great’s criticism had come at someone else’s behest.

Incidentally, it wouldn’t be out of context to mention here that Chappell writes for a web site owned by someone with whom Ganguly once had a commercial contract that ended prematurely.

Ganguly’s basic point of contention was how can Chappell have an access to the happening inside the dressing room.

That is, indeed, a contentious point. It is not long back that we all got to know that the dressing rooms of cricketers are no Fort Knox and one believes Ganguly has played the game enough to know that it is the cricketers themselves who carry the dressing room stories outside.

If, for a moment, one takes Chappell’s word or, for that matter, his source’s inside the dressing room on its face value, then the allegations he has made are quite serious indeed. Rudeness to players can have quite serious repercussions. After winning the 1996 World Cup, the Sri Lankan team showed a slump. Their coach Dave Whatmore, who was sacked after the team’s big win, had attributed the post-1996 slump to the ill-treatment of the juniors by seniors teammates in the side.

If that could reason for the fall of a hugely motivated side like Sri Lanka, the results could be nightmarish for a side like ours. Though the problem is hypothetical, the fortunes of the Indian team in the recent past has made one paranoid. And by the way, knowing what we know of Ian Chappell, the last has not been said on this issue.