Greg Chappell takes a dig at Indian Culture!

In a vicious attack on Indian culture and Indian cricket team of which he was the coach, Greg Chappell has said that the side lacked leaders because parents, school teachers and coaches made all the decisions in the Indian system.Brewing, what seems like, fresh controversy Chappello took a dig at almost every aspect about the Indian team. He even stated that the ICC World Cup winning Indian skipper MS Dhoni was worn out – thanks to the Indian system.

Excerpts:On grooming leaders in India:

The (Indian) culture is very different, it’s not a team culture. They lack leaders in the team because they are not trained to be leaders. From an early age, their parents make all the decisions, their schoolteachers make their decisions, their cricket coaches make the decisions. The culture of India is such that, if you put your head above the parapet someone will shoot it. Knock your head off. So they learn to keep their head down and not take responsibility.

On how British are taught much better than Indians:

The Poms (British) taught them really well to keep their head down. For if someone was deemed to be responsible, they’d get punished. So the Indians have learned to avoid responsibility. So before taking responsibility for any decisions, they prefer not to,” Chappell was quoted as saying during a promotional event for his book ‘Fierce Focus’.

On Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni being an exception:

Dhoni is one of the most impressive young men that I have ever worked with. When he came into that Indian team, you just knew that he was a leader in the making. He was definitely someone who could make decisions, and he didn’t mind putting his head above the parapet, and didn’t mind putting the bigger players in their place. I think he is the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket in recent times.

On how excessive cricket has now started taking a toll on Dhoni:

But looking at him (MSD) on this tour – I didn’t meet or speak to him at all – but just watching the body language and just watching him on the field, it wasn’t the MS Dhoni that I knew. I think Indian cricket has worn him down as well. Especially, captaining all three formats, and India plays about 50 per cent more cricket than Australia does. And Dhoni played four years, captaining three years while being wicketkeeper and their key batman – one of the best chasers of a target that I’ve ever seen.

Indians appeared disinterested in Test cricket:

It was obvious from the start of the tour that the Indians weren’t really interested in Test cricket. After the Australians showed that they were going to be a formidable foe, I was very disappointed with the Indians. And having worked with many of them and having been in the dressing room with them, Test cricket was too hard for most of them. They can only make a lot of money playing 20-over cricket. Fifty-over cricket they can sort of put up with.

Test cricket for a lot of, not only India, a lot of subcontinent teams, I think it’s pretty tough. And the challenge for Test cricket is, without the sort of grounding that we (Australians) had as kids, Test cricket is too hard. It’s very demanding mentally, physically and emotionally.

On his opinion about Sehwag’s interest in captaincy:

Sehwag thought he should be captain after (Anil) Kumble, so there is a bit of a collision there. I think Dhoni is getting to a point where Test cricket is getting too hard for him, and the undercurrent around the dressing room cannot help.