New Delhi: Three teammates Harbhajan Singh, VVS Laxman and Zaheer Khan on Tuesday backed Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar’s claims over former Indian coach Greg Chappell, where he termed the Australian as ‘ringmaster’ during his rein.
The 34-year-old offie stated that: “I am happy that Sachin Tendulkar has exposed Greg Chappell’s truth.”
“Whatever Sachin has disclosed in his autobiography regarding the former Indian coach is right,” the turbanator added further.
In fact Bhajji went on to say that “Chappell believed in divide and rule policy.”
Whereas, speedster Zaheer too disclosed that Greg Chappell had told him back in 2005 that the fast bowler “would never play for India” till the time he would remain at the helm and termed the period under the Australian as the “darkest phase of Indian cricket”.
“After he was appointed the coach of the Indian team, he once came upto me and told ‘Zaheer, you will not be playing for India till I remain the coach’,” stated Zaheer.
The 36-year-old termed that two-year phase (2005-07) of Chappell’s rein as “easily the worst and darkest phase”.
Former cricketer Laxman too made hard statement by saying that the Australian took “Indian cricket backwards” during his two-year tenure as the national cricket team’s coach.
Reacting to a series of startling allegations Tendulkar made in his autobiography ‘Playing It My Way’, Laxman said he totally believed in what the iconic batsman had written in his book.
Tendulkar had mentioned that Chappell had threatened Laxman his career would be over after he refused to open in a Test match in India.
Earlier, through the excerpts of Sachin Tendulkar’s much-awaited autobiography ‘Playing it my way’, which is about to release worldwide on November 6, the batting legend has hit out at Chappell, calling him a “ringmaster who imposed his ideas on the players without showing any signs of being concerned about whether they felt comfortable or not”.
The batting maestro also disclosed that Chappell had made a “shocking” suggestion to him to take over India’s captaincy from Rahul Dravid months before the 2007 World Cup in West Indies.
Elaborating on the coach’s bid to replace Dravid, Tendulkar writes, “Just months before the World Cup, Chappell had come to see me at home and, to my dismay, suggested that I should take over the captaincy from Rahul Dravid.
“Anjali (Tendulkar’s wife), who was sitting with me was equally shocked to hear him say that ‘together, we could control Indian cricket for year’, and that he would help me in taking over the reins of the side.
“I was surprised to hear the coach not showing the slightest amount of respect for the captain, with cricket’s biggest tournament just months away”, Tendulkar writes.
He says that he had rejected Chappell’s proposition outright. “He stayed for a couple of hours, trying to convince me before finally leaving”
Chappell was appointed coach of the Indian national cricket team for a two-year term until the World Cup 2007.
