Subhayan Chakraborty in Adelaide
On Saturday, as Australia were dominating India in the second of the five-Test series at the Adelaide Oval, a frail yet familiar figure walked into the media enclosure, all suited and booted. As one walks into the picturesque stadium, just beside the Sir Donald Bradman Pavilion stands the Chappell Stand, a tribute to the Chappell brothers – Ian, Greg, and Trevor. To see Greg Chappell, who has had a love-hate relationship with India and its die-hard fans, given his history as India’s head coach in the mid-2000s, was noteworthy.
After suffering from prolonged illness and financial instability, Greg Chappell took some time to speak with the travelling Indian media on all things cricket. The legendary batter heaped praise on Jasprit Bumrah while also talking at length about when a team should move on from senior players, given his experience with Indian cricket and the infamous Sourav Ganguly saga.
Though he wants everyone to wait for his column on Jasprit Bumrah and whether he is the greatest of all time, Greg said he doesn’t have any issues with having Bumrah or other pacers as captains of their respective teams. “He’s (Bumrah) a smart guy, he understands the game. I don’t have a problem with class bowling captains. It’s just been over the years. Traditionally, they thought their workload was such that it would be hard. But I think in the case of Pat Cummins, he’s got good support on the field with senior players and so on,” Greg said. “But he’s got a good feel for captaincy. There’s quite a bit of support around for fast bowlers. The worry, I think, for fast bowling captains was that you’ve got a five-match series and you’re playing five matches in seven weeks. That’s a hell of a workload. They’re probably not going to play all five games. So what? If someone’s standing for a game, away you go. I don’t see a problem.”
Cricket technology and third umpiring have been making headlines in the ongoing series due to some inconsistent calls. KL Rahul’s dismissal in Perth followed by Team India’s appeal against Mitch Marsh in Adelaide, and then Marsh walking off without Snicko showing any spike in another incident on Day 2 of the Adelaide Test.
“I was watching the game. When it happened live, he was out. There was a loud nick. A very loud nick. I mean, it came over very loudly on the television. As soon as it happened, I said, that’s out. Then the technology sort of didn’t support it. But I think if you ask him… He would probably say… In a month’s time, he’d probably own up to the fact that he hit that. I don’t think that was as controversial as it was made out. But, yeah, you want as much technology as you can get,” Greg said of Rahul’s incident in Perth. “The reason that the DRS came in was to try and avoid… The confusion. And the conflict. You don’t want the emotion to go too far and the players to get involved. It builds up over five days. And it builds up over two, three, four, five test matches. It was to try and take that emotion out of it. And I think by and large, it’s done that. It’s done that, yeah. It’s the bloody technology. And we’ve seen technology going wrong.”
The Indian team is going through a transition across formats, as is the Australian team in some aspects. Greg, as India’s coach, was the one who triggered a transition. He dropped some of the big names in the Indian dressing room, including captain Sourav Ganguly, while also forming strong opinions around Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, among others.
But when does a player know his time is up?
“You know yourself whether you’re at your peak or not. But they obviously love playing the game. They want to play it as long as they can, and they have every reason, every right to want to go as long as they can. That’s why you need good, robust selection policies and selection panels to make those tough decisions,” Greg said. “It’s not up to the players necessarily to make those decisions. They might want to make that decision. But it’s a well-paid job. Who’s going to walk away from it? Someone else has to make that decision. That’s why you need robust selection panels and policies.”
Are those conversations with senior players, some of whom are massive brands in themselves, comfortable?
“It’s very tough. You’ve got to pick the right people to be selectors, the ones that are prepared to have those tough conversations. They can be. Depends on the relationships between the various people in the room. But we all go through it, everyone that plays at that level. You’ll have your ups and downs as a player. With good players, you prefer to give them a game too many than a game too few. So it’s always tough to get that balance right,” the Aussie legend elaborated. “Everyone goes through it, every team goes through it. No cricket team is ever a finished article. You’re always looking at ways that you might improve it. So you’re constantly bringing players in, bringing players out. But when you get the superstars, you want them to go as long as they possibly can. So occasionally you might let them go a bit too long.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to rush Virat out of the room. I don’t think the player’s hand-eye coordination drops off at this age. I think it’s more just your mental capacity, your ability to be able to focus and concentrate that hard. It probably drops off as you get a bit older. But I don’t buy into the argument that the hand-eye coordination goes. The mind goes. You get to the stage where you don’t want to, it’s just that you can’t give it the single-minded focus that you did when you were younger. Your life changes, you get married, you have families. All of a sudden you’ve got other things that are coming into that mental space that wasn’t happening before. Therefore you finish up with just less of that space to be able to put in that effort. What it takes to make runs at this level, take wickets at this level, is huge. And you’ve only got to be off that much and that’s enough. But it might be a conversation with a mentor or a coach or a friend that reminds you of what you need to think about. If you can think the way you thought previously… And even in India, money is also a big matter. Once you’re out of the game.”
And what about self-conversation when one is ageing and the runs or wickets are not coming as frequently as one would want?
“It depends on you as a person, I think. I remember when my brother (Ian) retired from Test Cricket, I said, you’ve got plenty of cricket left in you. He said, mate, you won’t need anyone to tell you. And I didn’t need anyone to tell me. I knew when the time was up. So it’s then whether you want to admit that the time’s up, but you know the time’s up. It’s just whether you want to,” Greg explained.
Greg formed a fruitful relationship with Rahul Dravid as he elevated him to India captain. Dravid had an iconic career as a batter but also ended up helping India win the 2024 T20 World Cup as head coach.
“Yeah, he’s a wonderful human being and a wonderful cricket person. He understands the game well. I’m not surprised at all. He’s a great cricket person with great knowledge and he’s a good human as well. He relates well to people. We stay in touch from time to time, but it’s less so now that all the years have gone on. And since I haven’t been working in cricket. But we were both involved in the Under-19s with our own countries, so we used to see each other regularly,” Greg said with a smile. “And whenever we’ve been in the same city. We’ve always caught up. I caught up with him here a few years ago when he was coaching India. So that’s probably the last time face-to-face. We’ve had a few WhatsApp messages. As I’ve been less involved in cricket, that’s probably dwindled somewhat.”
