To draw a line and move on ahead,
Indian cricket needs to know what really went wrong in the last 20 months.
That things have gone horribly wrong, is so obvious, it cannot be denied.
The denial is in taking responsibility for failures.

There is a majority who would like to absolve Chappell from all the failures
are doing so by shifting the focus on the under-performing seniors portraying them as
fat, self indulgent, money hungry ‘spoilt’ brats who all deserved to be booted out,
except Rahul Dravid, ofcourse.

What about the under performing juniors that are being conveniently ignored?

Irfan Pathan.
‘ICC Emerging Player of the Year’ 2004

Was a bowler, who could bat.
Chappell tried to make him an all rounder
when he himself did not want to be one.

He needed him to be a hard hitting batsman at the top of the order
as if there were no hard hitting batsmen left in the country who could do that.

Few months, and a few successful knocks at the top,
he was hailed as one of the best all rounders.
The figurehead of Chappell’s success
the spirit of the brand Chappell’s Way.

That was then, now he is a name forgotten.
In spite of his failures and gross out of form, he made the team to the WCC.
Chappell couldn’t cast aside his flagship.

Chappell SMSed saying he didn’t get the youngsters he had asked for,
he got his blue-eyed boy (an out of form) Pathan, didn’t he?
Then why did Pathan not play a single match?
In less than a year he fell from a ‘hero to almost a zero’.

What really went wrong with Pathan under Chappell.
We need to find that out, it will tell us what went wrong for the whole team.
God help Indian cricket, if we don’t,
for this fiasco will take place again and again
and again.