Chappell–Ganguly controversy
However, John Wright's tenure had also seen India enter the finals of the 2003 Cricket World Cup after a poor start to the tournament, sharing victory in the 2002 Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka, and achieving famous Test wins in England, Australia, Pakistan and the West Indies.
John Wright's role in historic victories for India brought importance and prestige to the position of coach in Indian cricket.
Chappell was chosen over the other contenders Dav Whatmore, Mohinder Amarnath, Graham Ford, Desmond Haynes, Tom Moody and John Emburey in a highly publicised selection process.
[2] Chappell soon became the centre of the Indian media's attention, and his prominence and dominant personality soon began to clash with Ganguly, who had earned a reputation for being a successful and tough captain.
India's first tournament under Chappell was the 2005 Indian Oil Cup in Sri Lanka, with Rahul Dravid captaining the team.
The tournament saw Chappell introduce young batsmen such as Suresh Raina and Venugopal Rao, due to the suspension of Ganguly and the axing of V. V. S. Laxman.
After rumours emerged that Ganguly had allegedly faked an injury during the match, he made defiant comments to the media, in which he accused members of team management of trying to pressure him to resign as captain, although he would not name individuals.
[6] Later during the tour, Chappell sent an email to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which criticised Ganguly as being "mentally and physically unfit" to lead the team.
[13] Several members of the Indian team backed Ganguly during this time and were unhappy with the way the matters were handled by Chappell, according to some newspapers.
When the squad for the subsequent Test series against Sri Lanka was announced, Ganguly was included at the expense of paceman Zaheer Khan.
[17] Prior to the first Test in Chennai, debate centred on whether batsman Yuvraj Singh, who had been named man of the series against South Africa, would replace Ganguly in the middle order.
The Yuvraj-Ganguly debate was taken from the equation for the second Test at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi, when Sehwag was hospitalised with illness, allowing both to play.
Ganguly made 39 and 40 in the Test, while Yuvraj recovered from a first innings duck to score an unbeaten 75 in the second to set up a winning victory target.
As it turned out, Dravid became ill and was forced to withdraw from the Third Test in Ahmedabad, and Kaif played after being selected with the intention of avoiding Ganguly's humiliation as a reserve batsman.
Dravid and Sehwag responded with a 410 run opening stand, just three short of the world Test record set by fellow Indians Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy in 1956.
He was subsequently dropped for the Second Test in Faisalabad as India included an extra bowler on another batting-friendly pitch, with Dravid continuing as a makeshift opener.
Ganguly's chances of being selected against England in their March 2006 tour of India received a boost when Yuvraj suffered a hamstring injury which ruled him out of the First Test in Nagpur.
This effectively left him outside the top eight Test batsmen in the eyes of the BCCI, and was not selected in the ODI team as the selectors persisted with the squad which had recorded 17 wins and five losses since Dravid's appointment.
Following India's poor batting display in the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy[19] and the ODI series in South Africa, in which they were whitewashed 4–0,[20] Ganguly made his comeback to the Test team.
[21] Wasim Jaffer, Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble had earlier been selected for the one-day squad, despite their recent poor performances.
[33] The controversies and tensions surrounding Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell came to an end after India's poor performance and early elimination from the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
Although Indian batsmen amassed more than 400 runs for an easy win over the newcomers Bermuda in their second match, Ganguly scoring 87, the media still severely criticised the team leadership and the players.
For all practical purposes, India's World Cup campaign ended with its defeat to Sri Lanka, although it was not formally eliminated until Bangladesh achieved its predicted victory over Bermuda in the final group match.
Facing a barrage of criticism and public anger, and lack of support from the BCCI, Greg Chappell resigned as India's coach.
After much deliberation, the BCCI decided to retain Rahul Dravid as India's captain for the summer of 2007, but chose not to appoint a high-profile coach for the time being.
In 2008, veteran South African batsman Gary Kirsten was appointed head coach of the national team after a less-publicised selection process.
In November 2007, Chappell alleged that he was a victim of a "racist attack" at the Bhubaneshwar Airport in January 2007 when a fan "whacked him" behind his ear, and accused the BCCI of covering up the issue.
[37] In November 2014, in his autobiography Playing It My Way, Tendulkar criticised 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 worst part was some players in that team, who sucked upto the coach and would supply selective misinformation creating bigger rifts".
[45] In June 2020, Harbhajan Singh in conversation with Aakash Chopra claimed that Greg Chappell had a divide and rule policy and said, "2007 50-over World Cup has to be the lowest point of my career.
