"Tell coach not to come near me": Virender Sehwag recalls ugly fight with Greg Chappell

Greg Chappell, a former cricket player for Australia, never had the success that was expected of his relationship with the Indian cricket team. On the contrary, it is regarded as one of the most controversial eras in Indian cricket history. Sourav Ganguly left the national team because of the coach's disagreements with a number of players. Actually, while being coached by the Australian, India also lost in the group stage of the 2007 ODI World Cup.

Former India opener Virender Sehwag is a fairly decent storyteller, and ugly clashes frequently make for interesting anecdotes. When Australian former player Greg Chappell was the head coach of Team India, Sehwag recalled a time when the two had a falling out in the dressing room because of Sehwag's poor batting performance. Speaking on a chat program recently, Sehwag disclosed a nasty conversation he had with Chappell, but then-Indian captain Rahul Dravid stepped in and broke the two up. Sehwag acknowledged, "Tell your coach (Chappell) not to come near me," to Dravid.

When Chappell questioned Sehwag's batting approach and even threatened to drop him, that was the tipping point for him. “Greg told me I wouldn’t survive in international cricket unless I moved my feet. I reminded him that I had already scored over 6000 Test runs at an average above 50. He didn’t care and kept repeating the same line. That’s when things turned ugly. We had a big argument, and Rahul Dravid had to step in,” Sehwag recalled.

In the very following game, the verbal battle broke out on the pitch. Once more, Chappell cautioned him that failure would jeopardise his position. Sehwag used the bat to respond as best he could. He crashed to 99 before lunch, blasted the bowlers to every corner, and concluded with a scorching 184 against the West Indies. His rage had not subsided by the time he entered the dressing room again.

The combination of annoyance and resolve that fuelled Sehwag's knock was evident when he told Dravid, "Tell your coach not to come near me," after returning to the pavilion.

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