The announcement of Irfan Pathan’s retirement has once again stirred the Greg Chappell debate. Well, the majority of Indian cricket fans think that it was Greg Chappell’s tinkering with the game of Irfan Pathan that led to his downfall in his game.
Soon after Irfan Pathan announced his retirement, in one of the interviews, he cleared a wrong perception, he said blaming then coach of India Greg Chappell for his downfall was just a ‘cover-up’. Clearing the air around the perception of fans on his downfall, Irfan said:
“All these discussions…people talking about Greg Chappell they are just covering up. (The discussion that) Irfan was not interested, it was coming from somewhere. All the aura they made that Irfan lost his swing, people need to understand, that you are not going to get the same kind of swing that you get in 10 overs. I was still getting the swing.”
Greg Chappell, who was India’s head coach for two years from 2005 to 2007’s World Cup, has also opened up about the same. In an interview, he heaped in praises for the Indian all-rounder and how he was happy to play whatever the role was given to him. Calling him courageous and selfless, Greg Chappell said:
“Irfan was happy to play whatever role the team required. He was both courageous and selfless,”
He added:
“Irfan proved that he was a very capable all-rounder. Apart from what he did in limited-overs cricket, he very nearly scored a Test century (93 vs Sri Lanka at the Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi). His swing bowling was very good, with the highlight for me being his hat trick in the first over of a Test match against Pakistan in Karachi”
Irfan Pathan played 29 Tests, 120 ODIs and 24 T20Is for India, where he picked up a total of 301 international wickets, during his glorious career. He has contributed a lot to Indian cricket.
