NAGPUR, India (AP):
INDIA'S cricket board yesterday said national team coach Greg Chappell violated the code of conduct when he made disparaging remarks about former captain Sourav Ganguly earlier this week.
Niranjan Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said Chappell had been told that the Indian team's code of conduct also applied to the coach and other staff.
"Chappell ought to have known this, we don't have to keep reminding him about it," Shah told reporters during the opening Test match between India and England in the central city of Nagpur.
On Wednesday, the day the Test series started, an interview with Chappell was published in the British newspaper The Guardian containing remarks about Ganguly that the board found objectionable.
Chappell, the former Australian captain who took over as India coach last year, said in the interview that Ganguly had refused to give up the Indian captaincy because it was "utterly important to his life and finances".
REPRIMANDED
"He was just hanging in there. Modest innings were draining him. He had no energy to give to the team, which was helping neither him nor us," Chappell said.
Chappell was reprimanded by the cricket board after Ganguly lodged a complaint.
Shah said he read the interview and discussed it with Ganguly.
"Ganguly made his protest and there are certain comments in the interview which I myself consider objectionable," Shah said.
Shah said the board had sent Chappell an e-mail directing the coach "to confine his comments specifically to the Indian team's performance".
"We pointed out to Chappell that his comments about Ganguly were unwarranted," Shah said.
Shah said Chappell had acknowledged the message sent by the cricket board.
Ganguly, India's most successful captain, was dropped from the present Test squad as the selectors included four rookies in a bid to build the team for the future.
Ganguly's omission is widely viewed as the end of an international career that began when he scored a century in his debut match against England at Lord's in 1996.
Ganguly, 33, has scored 5,221 runs with 12 centuries from 88 Test matches at an average of 48.79. His reign as national skipper lasted five years and included 21 Test wins and 76 limited-overs victories, but his leadership came under a cloud last year due to poor batting form and a public dispute with coach Chappell during the tour of Zimbabwe.
Chappell accepted that it was Ganguly's support that had got him the job as India's coach, "but we clashed because Ganguly's needs as a struggling player and captain, and those of the team were different".
"I'm sure he thought he would be able to run me as he did (former coach) John (Wright) in the latter part of his time as coach," Chappell said in the interview.
