Happy to see what Sachin Tendulkar has written in his autobiography: Sourav Ganguly
Reacting to Sachin Tendulkar’s claims, made in his autobiography, that Greg Chappell acted like a “ring master” during his tenure as the coach of the Indian cricket team, Sourav Ganguly has said that he is happy to see the 41-year-old finally letting the world know of what he has been saying all along.
Ganguly, who lost his captaincy after Chappell became the coach in May 2005, said: “I am happy to see the way Tendulkar has written the book. Today he has done a lot of help to Indian cricket and hopefully it is an eye-opener to all. Happy that Sachin has written about true facts of that period.”
Tendulkar, writing in his yet-to-be released book ‘Playing it My Way’, reopened the Pandora’s box when he chose to reveal the Australian great’s plot to remove Rahul Dravid from captaincy post months ahead of the World Cup 2007.
When asked about it, Ganguly said: “I lost my captaincy in 2005 November-December and World Cup was in early 2007. Rahul became the captain. And another eight months time, he needed another captain (in Sachin). It goes to show his thoughts, goes to show what damage he has done to Indian cricket, goes to show the character of the man. He is someone who cannot be trusted whether it’s Ganguly, Dravid or Tendulkar.”
“He dare calls Sourav Ganguly” – Time for sorry is gone
On if he would accept an apology from the 66-year-old, in an exclusive interview to IndiaToday, Ganguly said: “He can call up Tendulkar, or Dravid. But he dare dial my number. If he's hearing this on TV, he dare calls Sourav Ganguly. The time for sorry is gone. And I have finished playing and moved on. These are mistakes which are unpardonable.”
Ganguly, however, refused to blame the players for not standing up against Chappell during that point of time. Explaining how it would have costed them their careers, Ganguly said: “Sometimes as a player you do not want to get into a controversy. You tend to stay out of it. I can understand where these players are coming from on what they wanted to say and why they wanted to keep quiet, because they saw what happened to me.”
“I lost my captaincy after winning the series 2-0, and also getting a Test match 100. I never captained India after that. I couldn't play one-day cricket in spite of being the best ODI player in the world at that time. They have seen what has happened. They didn't want to risk it, and it is quite natural to stay out of controversy. I don't blame them.”