We never regretted our decision: Ranbir Singh Mahendra

Former BCCI President Ranbir Singh Mahendra said that he believes that the appointment of Greg Chappell as Indian cricket team’s coach was not wrong and he never regretted the decision. This was after the former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly said that he had made a mistake in 2005 in selecting Chappell.

Ranbir Singh pointed out, “We had appointed a committee (Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, and S Venkatraghavan) and all the members of the committee were unanimous on this.” reported mid-day.

The Chappell-Ganguly saga was one of the biggest controversies in India cricket and Chappell was influential in dropping Ganguly from the captaincy and then later from the Indian squad. However, Ganguly made a strong comeback silencing his critics. Chappell’s association with Indian cricket ended after India’s miserable performance in the 2007 World Cup, where India was knocked out in the group stages after losing to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

However, Mahendra feels, “He was the best competent person at that time and his presentation impressed us all. Chappell did well till his differences with Ganguly surfaced. I was told that the team was not united, but that was only upon hearsay and the issues were sorted out thereafter.”

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Even the Indian batting legend, Sachin Tendulkar, who is not known for criticizing someone expressed his displeasure in his autobiography. He lambasted the Australian by describing him a ‘ringmaster’ who imposed his ideas on the players.

Mahendra seemed to have no regrets as he signed off saying, “We never felt that we made a wrong choice. We never regretted our decision. He (Chappell) was better than all those who were interviewed.”