Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
A couple of days ago, and all hell broke loose. The reason was as preposterous as a donkey’s tail recreating a Picasso. A cricket journalist from the once serene paradise called Bengalooru (erstwhile Bangalore) had conveniently insinuated to an SMS received from India’s cricket coach, Greg Chappell, who has become by now the Master of Leaky Ceremonies, wherein the latter had bitterly opposed the senior players in the Indian team and the chief selector, Dilip Vengsarkar for their selection prejudices. It was not just the content that was disconcerting. What was particularly unnerving and noteworthy was the brilliant timing of this Machiavellian act. Let me explain.
With his much-hyped Vision 2007 turning out to be a tragic farce and an international joke, which has only ended up in ridiculing Indian cricket, Greg Chappell is quickly engaging in the last-ditch effort to save face or the fake mask or whatever he sports. So while Rahul Dravid manfully admitted to taking full responsibility for the abysmal rout of India, Mr Chappell, true to character, has begun to look for scapegoats, and flimsy excuses. Continue reading below
So how come Mr Chappell’s bosom pal, defying all acts of journalistic ethics, was actually reading out the SMS to millions of TV households, making a case for Chappell’s repeated failures by blaming Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly (the supposed “senior players ”, we assume) and even Dilip Vengsarkar?
Does the concerned wise old journalist believe we were born yesterday, and cannot fathom that this mobile exposure has suddenly erupted without a planned strategy to cause further confusion and detract from the remarkable failures of the over-rated coach?
It stinks. First, the famous e-mail leak which temporarily destroyed Sourav Ganguly’s career (and for which Indian cricket has paid dear), and now this deliberate provocative SMS leak with a chosen media accessory playing sordid games with Indian cricket lovers. Mr Chappell called Ganguly “ cancerous” and several Indian cricket fans clapped in morbid unison. Today, thrashed humiliatingly by Bangladesh and mauled ruthlessly by Sri Lanka, Indian cricket has been the biggest loser. It’s time to correct it. But will we ever learn?
Greg Chappell has exploited camps within India media (he knows perhaps why the East India Company governed here for centuries) with adroit finesse. Is it professionally prudent and ethical to share closed-door issues with media which is in your “ favored list”? But the hard truth is that even his most die-hard staunch friends in the media cannot salvage the wrecked ship from capsizing.
I strongly suspect that Chappell will try his utmost to castigate some players, damaging careers, slurring reputations, creating deep fissures in the team even as he leaves, in his final report to the BCCI. But this time, I guess, his game is up.
Or is it?
