Dear Greg,
We owe much to your shrewdness for the help you gave in re-changing the face of India cricket. So, here goes a list of things that we need to be thankful to you for.
Thank you Greg for:
1. forcing India to learn the term ‘Process’, without really making them understand what it really meant. Not just the common masses, but the Indian team itself may not know what it was supposed to be!
2. making cricket in our country more exciting than it already was by your ‘leaked’ emails and smses to a few of our favourite journalists.
3. almost ending the career of the best ever skipper India has ever had.
4. making us realize that every defeat was a ‘learning curve’
5. persisting with underperforming players (read Suresh Raina) averaging just about 15 odd in the last few games and destroying the confidence of players who deserved better (read Mohd Kaif)! By giving such people more chances, he was moulding them to become better. Anyway, those who were performing better didn’t need that opportunity!
6. helping us realize that if you have an injury to the middle finger, then it heals faster when it’s left standing as the other fingers are bent.
7. giving Indian cricket fans the best ever performance in a world cup after what the team had done in 1979!
8. giving Indian cricket back the old tag it had throughout the 1990s – ‘consistently inconsistent’! During John Wright’s reign of four years, we got bored by the single term— ‘consistent’!
9. defining roles for individual team members, but not for the team as a whole!
10. introducing the concept of diversity in unity in the Indian team. 'Divide and rule' still can work wonders!!!
11. giving us action-packed and thrilling press conferences.
12. helping us realize the importance of team-spirit by watching our opponents play as a unit and defeating us convincingly and consistently.
13. killing the champion bowler in Irfan Pathan by forcing him to come at one-down. It improved his batting skills and opened the way for other bowlers to enter the team.
14. enlightening us on an important management lesson that ‘sucking up’ can take you places. That explains how you retained certain players despite a string of terrible performance.
15. lots of other things that I really am not able to remember now.
We really are grateful for all that thou hast done for Indian cricket and for taking Indian cricket to a new level altogether! We wish you a nice farewell and have a nice trip back home to Australia! I am sure they all missed you! Hope you enjoyed the Indian hospitality.
Thanking you.
Regards,
A sincere Indian Cricket Fan.
5 comments:
I hope he does go back home. Good riddance for bad rubbish.
That was nice! Hope the cricket team...wait! Is there any hope left after all this?
Mallu...never expected you to stop looking at things from an objective point of view. You, just like the other billion Indians ( barring a FEW) seem to have jumped on the I HATE THE INDIAN CRICKET TEAM AND EVERYONE ASSOCIATED WITH IT bandwagon. If you permit, let me air my views on the same!!!
You may go pointwise coz that's how I have remarked to each of your comments
1. Do you really think all the senior players went along with the 'process'. I highly doubt that the ENTIRE team went along with the process. its very clear that there were many things that went against Greg Chappells way of planning.
2. Leaked emails Mallu??? Do you remember a certain cricketer who calls a press conference to announce CONFIDENTIAL DISCUSSIONS in the team. Who the hell says you can discuss in public what has been decided in the dressing room!!!
3. I think that 'this best ever captain's' career had ended pretty much when he stopped hitting the ball and instead let the ball hit the stump.
4. I think that you too agree that every defeat is a learning curve!!!
5.Remember that the captain has as much a say in picking the squad and then the final eleven. I dont blame Greg entirely.
6.I think that the media deserves the middle finger from all of us. Greg showed them attitude and thats what the Indian media does not like. They like the last word and thats why the whole world thinks that Greg is the bad guy. I DONT AGREE.
8. Dont know much about this.
9. Each member has been defined a role keeping in mind the performance of the team.IT ALWAYS WORKS THAT WAY!!!
10. DIVIDE AND RULE mallu??? Those are the guys in Green. WE WEAR BLUE!!!!!!!!!!
11. Again you have believed what the papers have written without an explainiation from anyone under scrutiny.
12. Do you remember the win in the first test in the West Indies? The TEAM SPIRIT was very much evident. That was the same team.
13. I think Irfan Pathan needed a break anyway.
14 Sucking up... lets just check whether you are talking about the captain or the coach!!! - Virendar Sehwag...remember him- the chairman of selectors will tell you who pushed for him in the team selection meeting.
15. Mallu, you got to remember things for you to put the blame on people's shoulders.
And lastly the sign off will have to be corrected coz from my point of view...the true Indian fan will look deeper and not pass a judgement when not even a month has passed!!!
Carlo,
“never expected you to stop looking at things from an objective point”— the reason for the way I posted these as just points without substantiating on them was because I thought since my previous posts were really huge, this one ought to be smaller!!
“You, just like the other billion Indians ( barring a FEW) seem to have jumped on the I HATE THE INDIAN CRICKET TEAM AND EVERYONE ASSOCIATED WITH IT bandwagon.”— got that one wrong Carlo! Scroll down to the post ‘Out’ and I haven’t blamed the team at all! It’s just one person! I was amongst the 1st one to acknowledge that the players would have felt the hurt more than the fans! I didn’t blame EVERYONE… If u notice carefully, there’s just ONE!
So, here are my remarks to ur remarks:
1. “Do you really think all the senior players went along with the 'process'. I highly doubt that the ENTIRE team went along with the process. its very clear that there were many things that went against Greg Chappells way of planning.” -- that’s precisely my point Carlo! Everyone was confused what the ‘process’ actually meant! Not just the seniors, but the ‘process’ (even if there was any) failed even with the youngsters! Sachin was given the role of mentoring, which all youngsters admitted he did to the core!
2. “Leaked emails Mallu??? Do you remember a certain cricketer who calls a press conference to announce CONFIDENTIAL DISCUSSIONS in the team. Who the hell says you can discuss in public what has been decided in the dressing room!!!” – got this wrong Carlo. The ‘discussion’ u mentioned here happened right on the ground in front of everyone. It was obvious that the discussion was serious in nature. Besides, he didn’t CALL the press conference. This one was a POST MATCH PRESS CONFERENCE in which a journalist asked him directly if the coach had asked him to step down!
3. I think that 'this best ever captain's' career had ended pretty much when he stopped hitting the ball and instead let the ball hit the stump.— you are talking about someone who was the second highest scorer for India in Pakistan before being dropped from the side. You are talking about someone who has, perhaps, been the only consistent player after making a comeback! You are again thinking from Greg’s shoes when you his career had ended! A statement which Kiran More, the chairman of selectors then, had said with Greg to support him!
4. “I think that you too agree that every defeat is a learning curve!!!”—I would like to focus on the word ‘EVERY’ here! Losing is fine, but losing EVERY tournament (and that too, getting thrashed) is very hard to digest!
5. “Remember that the captain has as much a say in picking the squad and then the final eleven. I dont blame Greg entirely.”—Point taken. But when a coach talks about Raina being the future captain, it is quite evident why he was persisting with a talented, yet underperforming player!
6. “I think that the media deserves the middle finger from all of us. Greg showed them attitude and thats what the Indian media does not like. They like the last word and thats why the whole world thinks that Greg is the bad guy. I DONT AGREE.” – the middle finger was for the booing the team got from the public and not JUST for the media! By the way, some part of this same media that you are talking about, WAS USED by Mr. Process himself to convey the inside story! SMS leak is an example! The same media also never complained when India defeated Sri Lanka, Pakistan and England in the subcontinent. The same media had heaped deserved praises on the Indian team and the coach too! So, a disappointing performance is bound to raise criticisms! And showing the middle finger is NOT AT ALL the right attitude the coach of an INDIAN team ought to show! Wonder why John Wright never faced such issues with the media!
7. and 8. Just facts. Period
9. “Each member has been defined a role keeping in mind the performance of the team.IT ALWAYS WORKS THAT WAY!!!” – agree with u again. But what if this role doesn’t fit his profile and the team’s profile? The roles were clearly heading to a confused world!
10. “DIVIDE AND RULE mallu??? Those are the guys in Green. WE WEAR BLUE!!!!!!!!!!” – Read the latest headlines appearing on sports pages! You would know what I am talking about. From what I see, Greg just couldn’t stand those that had blossomed under Wright and Ganguly! If you want me to take names. Here they are—Yuvraj, Zaheer (he was the primarily responsible for delaying Zaheer’s selection), Harbhajan, Sehwag and Kaif! Kaif, by the way, was accused of hiding inside the dressing room when the situation demanded for someone to put up their hand! You are talking about a player who have dragged India out of such situations many a time!
11. “Again you have believed what the papers have written without an explainiation from anyone under scrutiny.”-- I have seen the press conferences LIVE ON TV! I haven’t at all read anything in newspapers about this! A perfect example for this was if you had watched the post match press conference after the Sri Lanka game. Every question tossed at Chappell was called ‘inflammatory’!!! The need of the hour demanded honest answers, not RUDE and EVASIVE ones!
12. “Do you remember the win in the first test in the West Indies? The TEAM SPIRIT was very much evident. That was the same team.” – was the same team indeed! But ever wondered why the same team never translated such similar performances in other games and especially against South Africa. Whatever happened to the team that reached the finals in the last edition!
13. “I think Irfan Pathan needed a break anyway.”—the question here is what happened so drastically that forced a break on him! He was asked to concentrate on his batting and try to become an allrounder. In that ‘process’, he lost his natural ability in bowling and we saw a dead bowler!
14. “Sucking up... lets just check whether you are talking about the captain or the coach!!! - Virendar Sehwag...remember him- the chairman of selectors will tell you who pushed for him in the team selection meeting.” – Nope, am not talking about Sehwag! I do know that he has a record of getting on the wrong side of the coaches! I do know that he never quite got along with Greg! I was talking about Suresh Raina, ‘the next Indian skipper’!!!
15. “Mallu, you got to remember things for you to put the blame on people's shoulders.”—I am just giving him some breathing space!
“And lastly the sign off will have to be corrected coz from my point of view...the true Indian fan will look deeper and not pass a judgement when not even a month has passed!!!” – the sign off reads A SINCERE Indian Cricket Fan… I am not talking on behalf of all the fans here. These are purely my opinion.
Btw, just another point. How easily everyone blames the media for everything? I think the media is just an easy prey! And this comes from a media student who knows the intricacies of the media world fairly well!! Just because people can’t find a proper explanation/fault, they find the media! Agreed some journalists give the other 90% a bad name. But to find fault in the media and to say media is spreading rumours is just ridiculous! There’s something called accountability in almost every media organization. Unless a reporter proves his story and the source he/she got it from, the editor will hesitate to put it in print! At least, the editor has to be sure of the source and the implications that story might have if it’s proven untrue! Cause remember, they have the entire publication to lose if found latter!
1. I don’t get the point Mallu. Sachin was given a role as a mentor as part of your ‘process’. He did a damn good role at that. 3 days after the world cup, when the entire media was baying for Greg’s blood, Narayana Murthy wrote an article about the term ‘process’. He said that in Infosys, once a person is chosen to lead, then everyone jolly well get in line and rally behind that person. The leader now got the reins in his hand and carry out the ‘process’ his way. The people under him better shape up or ship out. My point was – that Greg was faced with opposition from the very beginning. There were many seniors who did not want to go along with his process coz of their inflated egos.
2. I think it isn’t important where Saurav Ganguly dropped the bombshell. I have an issue with the fact that he DID IT. If the coach and he had an argument on the ground and the media asked him about it, God gave him shoulders to shrug, he should have used them without opening his mouth. Who the hell does he think he is?
3. Mallu, I remember Saurav himself saying after he made his comeback that all his past was INDEED HIS PAST. So he realized that all the stats count for nothing and current form does. I do agree that he has made one hell of a comeback but I feel that the form he was in warranted a trip to the sidelines.
4. I don’t know how many tournaments they have lost in a row. But I remember they won the tournament before leaving for the World Cup. At that point of time, no one patted Greg on the back.
5. I think Dravid has to come out here and state here what his plans were in picking the squad. I refuse to believe that Greg alone has to be blamed.
6. Why can’t the INDIAN team coach raise his middle finger? Because our much pampered media are very used to polite words and smiles and poses. They have to realize that they are not always going to get what they want. They cannot deal with attitude. So again here, I think he did a good thing by showing the media the finger.
9. I think examples have to be given here
10.Kaif’s form had dipped tremendously. You are talking to someone who loves Kaif’s game to the core. I think a cricketer must use his bat to do all the talking and if Kaif wanted to get back at Greg, what better way to do that then getting out there and scoring some runs. Here again, if he had the support of Dravid, I think he could have done well.
11. Why must he answer the media??? The only person he needs to answer is his employers – the BCCI. That he will do on the 6th and 7th. We need to hold the BCCI responsible. Greg does not need to talk to the press at all. There is a reason there is a media manager!!
12. That’s a qt that cannot be answered by me but can’t blame Greg for this as well.
13. It was also the selection committee who decided that Pathan should be sent back to the basics. Not the coach alone.
14. Mallu, its called the ways of the world…you want to go places, you stick to the guy who makes the decisions. Sehwag did it…he got a free plane ride and a free plane ride to the Carribean coz of that. Raina aint the only one.
MEDIA – if so sure about their ‘SOURCES” should put their sources names in print. Mallu, the media have the advantage of sending back volleys day after day. However, the person they are screwing doesn’t have the same advantage. He/ she gives one statement and that is taken, made teekha and meetha and then translated into another language, and then translated back and only then typed out.
Mallu, the classroom and the office are two different places. Sometimes, the stuff in the textbook is slightly different from what they do in the real world.
I do agree that the media is an easy target, but the media should realize that substantiation of facts is as important.
Today, Sachin has (apparently) given an interview to the TOI. Do you believe that? Coz I sure as hell don’t. Sachin has no business giving interviews to the press as long as he in service of the country. Once he hangs up his boots and is not being paid by the BCCI, then he can give as many interviews as he wants.
I expect another comeback from you Mallu…don’t disappoint me.
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