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‘There was no more bickering, everyone was happy’: Former manager reveals how Indian team was a changed bunch after Greg Chappell
Former Indian cricket team manager Chandu Borde explained how he helped reinvigorate the players after the departure of Greg Chappell.
Former cricketer Chandu Borde was handed a tough task by the BCCI when he was appointed manager of the Indian cricket team in 2007. Borde’s appointment had come at a turbulent time for Indian cricket. Greg Chappell was sacked following India’s dismal campaign at the 2007 World Cup and with no immediate coach in sight, the BCCI asked Borde to be the team manager for the tour of England starting July.
Borde had a tough task at hand. Chappell’s fallout with several members of the team had left Indian cricket scarred. Borde’s foremost task was to inculcate trust and a belief of self-confidence in the team, which he eventually managed to achieve as under Rahul Dravid, India won the three-Test series 1-0 to register their first Test series win in England in 21 years.
“What happened, one day in England just when the tour started, I called a meeting of all the players in the morning before going to the ground. When everything was sitting, I first asked the masseur what he felt about the team. Then I moved to other players asking them what we should do. I asked Ganguly, I asked Sachin, I asked Dravid. This way I started. And I allowed them to express their feelings,” Borde told SportsKeeda in an interview.
“I told them what we need to do, what we want to do. You are a good bunch of boys; you must do something. That time I told them that our motto should be three Ws - ‘We will win’. These boys respected me, they came together and we had a wonderful series. We won the series, in fact after such a long time. Lot of people did not give enough credit to our performance. I think 11 years or 21 years we had not won in England.
“But that series we won in 2007, I am really proud of these boys. One thing I liked about them, there was no bickering and everybody was very happy. And being a cricketer, I knew what was their requirement. I only used to have a little chat with them and pat them.”
Borde, who has twice served as the BCCI chairman of selectors – from 1984 to 1986 and later between 1999 and 2002 – revealed he was having a quiet meal with his wife during one afternoon when then-BCCI president Sharad Pawar rang up Borde to inform him of his appointment as Indian team’s manager for the tour of England.
“I asked some of the Board officials and they said that something went wrong with Greg Chappell. Players were not very happy. They told me that there was a bit of a misunderstanding amongst the players. There was an inner fight that was going on. I had been their manager, selector and coach sometimes,” Borde said.
