Suresh Raina: In my eyes, Greg Chappell was never wrong

Swashbuckling batsman Suresh Raina comes out in support of former coach Chappell, whose personality and methods were slammed by some reputed stars after his stint ended in 2007

Over the years, a lot has been written and said about Greg’s time as India coach, about how not everyone liked his style of leadership in the dressing room. Greg was always result-oriented, and he would make sure we achieved the results we were aiming for, no matter what. That was the kind of attitude I appreciated since I was just starting my career and was happy to be instructed. However, the senior players of the team were very different, as were their respective equations with him.

In hindsight, he probably should have treated the senior players a bit differently than how he treated us. But again, that’s not something that bothered me back then. For me it was simple: if we win, we are praised; if we lose, we are reprimanded. But his intention was to push us to grow further as cricketers and never to demean us in any way. Greg had gone through a lot but had handled it all well.

The team that Dada (Sourav Ganguly) created has always been widely appreciated for making a mark in cricketing history. 

However, the credit for so many of us youngsters making it into that team goes to Greg, since he was the one who prepared us to take that challenge. 

Greg Chappell

He and Kiran More Sir, as the chief selector, were the ones who supported this move. Greg is the number one talent-hunter. He always ensured that the youngsters got their due in the Indian team. And he played an enormous role in getting the likes of RP Singh, MS Dhoni, S Sreesanth, Murali Kartik and Irfan Pathan among others to play for India with a lot of success.

The Indian team during my time was like a family. And like in every family, there were times when everyone didn’t get along with each other the way you would expect them to. There were some tense moments within the dressing room during Greg’s tenure as our coach. 

Rahul Bhai was a really good captain that way. He would make sure our performances weren’t affected due to those issues. So, we as younger players would never be involved in such situations. Whenever they would have their meetings, we would go out for running or training and thus had no idea as to what happened behind closed doors. In my eyes, Greg was never wrong, since he always strived to make sure the team was on its toes and never favoured any one player.

Greg was ruthless when we lost, but most of it was directed towards the senior players. I do agree that he should have respected them more—people like Sachin (Tendulkar) and Dada.

Once Greg had asked me to go practise a day before the match, prior to the scheduled training session for that day. 

I remember one of the senior players of the team came up to me to mock me, saying that I was the only one who got all the ‘extra’ practice sessions as if it was only me who was going to play the match. So, I quickly asked him to join me because I had no intentions to hurt anyone. For me, ragging was no big deal since I was used to that, thanks to my hostel life. But I wouldn’t say anyone ever got ‘ragged’ in the Indian dressing room. Believe me, I know what ragging is. We didn’t have that. What we did have were some tense moments with some players. There were instances when we would greet some of the senior players in the morning, and they wouldn’t greet back. But I never took these to heart.

There were certain players, like Rahul bhai (Dravid) and Sachin Paaji, who were revered in the dressing room. They would try to keep things calm. Another significant change at that time was Dravid replacing Dada as the captain. So, it was the accumulation of all these factors that led to the occasional unrest among the seniors. 
It was a transitional period for the team. Not every junior player felt comfortable in that situation. But my relations with Rahul Bhai were very good. 

Greg emphasised a lot on technique, offering us constant tips on how to give our best in the game. He always asked us to play aggressively instead of going soft. 

All this helped boost our confidence eventually. After the official training hours, he would stay back with us youngsters to help us prepare ourselves psychologically, telling us how to handle things off the field, the media being one of the focal points of these sessions. This holistic training helped us a lot in the long run.
I think it was an extremely good decision on the part of the BCCI to have a man with his experience to come and coach us. Greg always told us, after every international tournament, that we needed to keep going back to domestic cricket. 

He vouched for the importance of playing a lot of cricket to get better at playing cricket. He would emphasise on the Ranji Trophy and would often come along to watch some of the games. Very few international coaches do that. anywhere in the world.

He wasn’t a gym person as such, but he was brilliant with endurance training. He would make us work on improving our fielding; Yuvraj (Singh), Sachin, me—all of us benefitted from that.

He would also do things differently. We would practise on cement surfaces. He would make us play with stumps and hockey sticks. 

Then, he would share his own experiences with us and make us do activity-based routines, like playing blindfolded. 

The fact that he would involve the youngsters so much brought about a lot of structural changes within the team, setting a new paradigm in team formation.

I picked up a lot of lessons from Greg. But I think somewhere along the line, despite all the controversies around his coaching career, he taught India how to win and the importance of winning.

Also Read: Sourav Ganguly didn’t want to work hard: Greg Chappell

Edited excerpts from BELIEVE - What Life and Cricket Taught Me by Suresh Raina with Bharat Sundaresan, published by Penguin Random House India 

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