India Australia Series

Chappell was my biggest mistake: Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly has said he believes people outside the team poisoned Greg Chappell against him, leading to his removal from the captaincy and, for a while, from the team.

Ganguly, who will bow out after the Nagpur Test against Australia, said he would not have been in the team for the current Test series against Australia if the “old selection committee had stayed” and that he would have “thought differently” about his retirement had he still been playing one-day cricket.

“The thing that hurt me the most, in my whole career, was that public email he Chappell sent – what was written in it and the tone in which it was written,” he told a newspaper.

“It was very upsetting, and I found it strange because I didn’t think we’d spent enough time together in the team for him to form such a strong opinion about me. I’m convinced that some people had poisoned him against me.” Asked whether they were people in the team, he said, “No, outside the team.’

The email was subsequently leaked to the media and Ganguly was out of the team till he staged a comeback late in 2006.

Chappell was appointed as coach with the backing of Ganguly, then India captain. “I’d discussed my batting with him a couple of times and he’d been very helpful. Most of the others wanted Tom Moody but I pushed for Chappell. You could say it was my biggest mistake, but I had the best for Indian cricket at heart. People joke with me that I was to blame for getting them stuck with him.”

Tags: sourav ganguly