Chappell steers clear of revisiting chequered past with Indian cricket

Greg Chappell has refused to be drawn into the controversy involving Sourav Ganguly - a storm he has, in part, helped stir, albeit unintentionally. Normally reluctant to speak about Ganguly, with whom he shares a chequered and strained history, or about Indian cricket, unless he is writing columns, Chappell, however, became part of headlines by seemingly backing Chris Broad's critical remarks against Indian cricket.

"I wish Indian cricket, its highly talented cricketers, and the BCCI well," the former India coach told Cricbuzz, when contacted about his remarks in the Australian media, where he was quoted as saying that Jagmohan Dalmiya, a former BCCI president, had suggested to him him that Ganguly can be made available for a tour even though he had been serving suspension. Chappell released the statement through The Chappell Foundation chairman Darshak Mehta.

"Dalmiya offered to have his suspension reduced so that he could go to Sri Lanka at the start of my tenure," Chappell told Sydney Morning Herald weighing in on the controversy. "I said no, I don't want to rort the system, he has to do his time. Dalmiya seemed OK for him to miss."

The controversy stems from Broad's scathing remarks, made in a reflective interview on Tuesday, where the former ICC match referee claimed he was instructed to be lenient towards Ganguly in an over-rate breach.

"India were three, four overs short at the end of the game, so it was a fine. Then I got a call saying, 'be lenient, find some time because it's India.' The very next game, the same thing happened again. When I asked what to do, I was told 'just do him.' It was clear there was politics involved," the former England opener and father of Stuart Broad told The Telegraph in the UK.

Mehta, however, said the obsession about Chappell should end. "This obsession with Greg still flourishes undimmed, 18 years after he resigned as India coach. Every word he says is analysed, dissected and usually twisted for some hidden or imaginary animus against Ganguly," Mehta, a close friend of Chappell, said.

The issue goes back by two decades, when Ganguly was the undisputed king of Indian cricket - so influential that even Parliament once debated his exclusion from the national team. The context here was a six-match home ODI series against Pakistan, during which captain Ganguly was penalised for a slow over-rate. Broad was referring initially to the third ODI in Jamshedpur, which India lost, and then to the Ahmedabad match, where they went down again.

After the Ahmedabad match, Ganguly was suspended for six games - a sentence that was eventually reduced to four on appeal. He missed the last two ODIs, in Kanpur and Delhi, both of which India lost, going down 2-4 in the six-match series against the Inzamam-ul-Haq-led Pakistan side. John Wright was India's coach during that series in March-April 2005.

Immediately after that Pakistan series, Chappell was appointed coach of the Indian team, with his first assignment being a tri-series in Sri Lanka in July-August 2005. Ganguly joined the side, led by Rahul Dravid, after the first two games - and that's when the seeds of the famous Chappell-Ganguly saga were believed to be sown.

"I have no comments to offer," Chappell said when asked if the BCCI and Indian cricket held too much power, as suggested by Broad. Chappell remained India's coach from May 2005 to April 2007.