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ancient Australia Cricketer Greg Chappell’s tenure as India’s head coach was always surrounded by controversies. Chappell is also widely criticized for India’s early exit from the 2007 ODI World Cup.
Former Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa He has spent the initial few years of his career with the Indian team under Greg Chappell as the head coach. After working with him, Uthappa got a good amount of insight into the things that went wrong in his coaching tenure.
Uthappa accused Chappell of leaking certain information from the dressing room and running an agenda. While Uthappa feels that Chappell was good with the younger players, he called him the coach who never respected Indian culture.
“Greg Chappell carried an agenda” – Robin Uthappa
During a discussion on Lallantop, Robin Uthappa was asked about Greg Chappell’s tenure as India’s head coach, which led to the decline of Indian cricket. Uthappa claimed that the team environment under Chappell was the worst.
He accused Chappell of running an agenda and coaching with an Australian mindset that didn’t quite work in India. According to Uthappa, Chappell never respected Indian culture and had a bad habit of leaking information when things didn’t work out for him.
“Uss team ka mahaul bahut kharab tha (The environment of this team was very bad). Greg Chappell was running an agenda. He was training with an Australian mentality, saying, ‘This is how we do things in Australia.’ I think not he ever respected the 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. This did not sit well with the players. He leaked information from the dressing room,” he added.
“Greg Chappell was very good to me” – Robin Uthappa
Although Greg Chappell did not have a good relationship with the senior players, Robin Uthappa claimed that he was good with him when he was young. 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 came into the team. I was young and he used to support youngsters. When I was 20, a dream was to play for India, win for India . I hope he wins a World Cup for India,” said Uthappa.
“When you have the opportunity to play for the country, you feel like the boss. You don’t need anything else. I will give everything for my team. I played with that mentality,” he added.
Uthappa also revealed that under Chappell, the concept of strength training was introduced which did not work 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 the darkest days in Indian 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 shock defeats to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the group stage and were eliminated.
The team had a no. of senior players with Rahul Dravid like the captain Chappell was credited with changing the team’s batting order and having Sachin Tendulkar batting in the middle order rather than opening the innings.
