How the war was lost before India began its first World Cup battle

This paper talked to some of the main characters in this tragedy — including coach Greg Chappell, captain Rahul Dravid and at least two other senior players — before, during and immediately after India’s World Cup 2007, and it can now reveal that many in this team had little hope of succeeding in the Caribbean, and the skipper was spending a lot of his time and energy repairing a severe communications breakdown between the coach and most of the senior players.

Today, a shattered Dravid is still to decide on his future, preferring to take the call, if it does comes from the BCCI, after a few quiet days with his family. And a stoic Chappell is facing the fallout of an unnatural obsession to bring the media into the loop at every turn, despite being repeatedly cautioned by the captain over the last two years — the coach is not very hopeful of a recall, either.

What led to this sorry situation? Where did it go wrong? There are many answers, and you will find some of them in the report that Chappell will submit to the BCCI. Or, in the notes that have been diligently taken down by the coach over the last two years that will soon come together in the form of an ‘explosive’ book.

But, for now, it essentially boils down to this:

• Dravid believes it is the failure of youngsters to really challenge the aging veterans, including himself, which led to the team compromising on agility and fitness, and the burden falling back on battle-scarred shoulders. He agrees with the coach that it is high time for a young India to emerge, but strongly feels you can’t simply shut the door on players like Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, especially when the domestic circuit is yet to throw up the kind of talent that can take over right now. His biggest disappointment is the failure of Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif to seal their slots in the Indian battling line-up over the last 12 months.

• Coach Chappell points towards the BCCI and the selectors for not seeing the larger picture — for succumbing to public pressure and recalling Sourav Ganguly, for bowing to the captain’s wishes and letting Virender Sehwag carry on, for not pushing Sachin Tendulkar enough. He also blames Tendulkar and Ganguly for staying aloof, and not contributing enough leadership-wise, letting Dravid take all the load. In one rare, unguarded moment last week, he even tried to link this ambivalence to the race for captaincy – it’s a charge that Ganguly, at least, swatted aside with a contemptuous laugh.

• As for the senior players, at least one of them was not very enthused by the “bookish” captaincy of Dravid, but stressed that the team would rally behind him in this time of crisis. And both made their disgust at the coach’s methods very clear – they blamed the Aussie for repeatedly leaking team plans and his opinion on various players to the media; they said this finally led to an atmosphere of divisiveness within the side. “He played around with our minds,” said one of them.

In fact, by the time the team reached the West Indies, the relationship between the coach and almost every other senior player, except Dravid, had become so strained that there were days when a player — like, say, Tendulkar — would hardly exchange a word with Chappell.

And despite all the public smiles, it’s doubtful whether Chappell was ever on backslapping terms with Tendulkar, Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan:

• Tendulkar’s relationship with Chappell started going awry almost immediately after his comeback from injury late last year when the coach questioned his fitness. Chappell, then frustrated by the Mumbai star’s repeated flops, slammed in another nail by standing in the way of Tendulkar’s burning desire to open the innings. The coach believes that Tendulkar is denying the team the wealth of his experience and turning away from the tough option of grinding it out and propping up the Indian middle-order – Chappell, besides, prefers to see Robin Uthappa grow as one-day opener.

• The Ganguly-Chappell patch-up is a sham in every sense with the former captain still ruing his decision to back the Aussie for the job almost two years ago, despite being ‘cautioned’ by many Australian players, including Steve Waugh. Not surprisingly, Chappell believes that the decision to recall the former skipper was a step backwards — the fight between the two had always been about who would hold the team’s reins — while the left-hander points to the string of good scores since his return to prove the coach wrong.

• Harbhajan and Zaheer, both perceived to be Ganguly’s ‘men’, got on the wrong side of Chappell following ‘Dada’s’ ouster. Chappell believes that the off-spinner has lost the will and the bite, while the emotional sardar blames the coach for not understanding his art and breaking the team’s spirit by leaking stories about players. Zaheer, who was shown the door by Chappell last year for lack of fitness and the right ‘attitude’, is back with a bang but has largely stuck to himself, and is said to be counting the days.

Dravid remains the only senior player who has been able to strike the right note with the former Australian captain – probably, because of their strong, common faith in motivational tools, in the belief that it’s the mind that counts at the highest level.

The Bangalorean is still a bit overawed by the former Australian captain’s “cricketing brain”, and believes that most of what Chappell has said – on the need to push younger players, on setting up an assembly line – makes sense. But even he is not very happy with Chappell’s obsession with the media, even though he attributes it to the coach’s eagerness to convince everybody about his vision, get everyone on board.

The skipper is also painfully aware that many of Chappell’s off-the-record opinions were being leaked right back to the players, adding up to a lot of heartburn and unrest especially over the last six months.

There you have it then: coach and players on different pitches, an overloaded captain, seniors pulling in different directions. No wonder then, that all it took finally for the world’s richest cricket team to come crashing down was one gentle push — from Bangladesh.