‘John the Wright man’

Wright also gets full marks for the way he conducts himself. ‘‘I believe John does the correct thing by remaining in the background all the time. You know modern day coaches have the tendency to remain in the focus all the time. The important thing is the results and Indian team has had that in the recent past.’’

Like his brother Ian, Chappell disagrees with the designation that Wright and his ilk hold. ‘‘I prefer the term cricket manager. I like what John Buchanan does as he is a facilitator. Maybe he is doing the right role with the wrong title.’’

A cricket manager, Chappell believes, signifies managing and organising things for the team, which is very important in today’s game. ‘‘In modern cricket, the requirements from a captain have increased. Probably it started because of the World Series Cricket. The format changed and the whole approach also was transformed. Hence you need a cricket manager to help the captain.’’

On match days, though, Chappell believes it is the captain’s role that is most important. Here Chappell tried to relate his own experience of coaching the Australian State side South Australia for a couple of seasons.

‘‘Teaching them how to play was out of the question. I would talk about experiences of the day, offer ideas and suggestions and talk about the coming day. Asking individual players how they felt when they got out.’’

Modern coaches, Chappell says, should bring in more specialists to handle the problems of individual players. ‘‘No one person can solve everything. And not every player can relate well to one person. If a cricket manager or a coach brings in somebody then it is a sign of a strength. Assigning the right individual to a player would help to find different things about your game.’’

And for this the 56-year-old cited the example of Dennis Lillee being constantly sought out by Australian coach John Buchanan for Brett Lee.

Wright also is a great believer in the same theory, but sometimes gets criticised for this.

‘‘You guys make too much of things and get too emotional. If Sehwag picks Sunny Gavaskar’s brains or Sourav learns something from Barry Richards it is only beneficial for the team. These are people with lots of experience and they will only motivate the team with their views.’’

Chappell — who was interviewed for the India job in 2000, though he believes the BCCI had already settled on Wright — today leads a full life with a private business that takes him around Australia and also an online coaching consultancy (www.chappellway.com.au). ‘‘The website is very popular, we have people, associations and even young cricketers writing in with queries about different aspects of the game,’’ says the younger Chappell brother.