In a tweet, former India fast bowler Venkatesh Prasad revealed that former coach Greg Chappell rejected Deepak Chahar when the fast bowler was a youngster trying to get into the Rajasthan Cricket Association, and sent out a message saying that overseas coaches should not be taken too seriously.
Chahar’s innings, which helped India to a thrilling three-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the second One-Day International in Colombo, prompted Prasad’s comments. Chahar scored 69 not out and put on an unbeaten 84-run partnership with Bhuvneshwar Kumar to guide India home in a successful chase of 276 runs, with India struggling at 116/5 and later at 193/7.
“Deepak Chahar Was rejected by Greg Chappell at RCA for his height and told to look at a different occupation. And he single-handedly won a match with not even his primary skills. Moral of the story – Believe in yourself and don’t take overseas coaches too seriously,” Prasad tweeted.
“There are off-course exceptions but with such wonderful talent in India, it’s time that teams and franchisees consider having Indian coaches and mentors as much as possible,” he further tweeted.
From 2005 to 2007, Chappell was the coach of the Indian national team. His spat with former India captain Sourav Ganguly is still one of the most contentious chapters in Indian cricket, and despite winning 17 consecutive chasing matches under his leadership, India had a disastrous World Cup 2007 in which they were knocked out in the first round after defeats to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
After India’s disastrous performance, Chappell was fired and went on to work as an academy coach for the Rajasthan Royals. That appears to be the time when the incident occurred. In fact, Aaka is a long-serving servant of Rajasthan cricket and a former India opening batsman.
“Chahar’s story is very exciting. When he was younger, he used to practice in Rajasthan in Hanumangarh, he met Gregg Chappell – the director of the Rajasthan Cricket Academy at that time, who told him to leave cricket. Chappell told him to leave cricket not because he wouldn’t get selected into the academy but he told him that he would never become a cricketer himself,” he had said.
