Greg Chappell denies Tendulkar's allegations

Former Australia captain Greg Chappell, who coached India between 2005 and 2007, has denied Sachin Tendulkar's claims that he wanted to remove Rahul Dravid as captain of the side before the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. In an excerpt from his forthcoming autobiography, Playing It My Way, which will be released on November 6, Tendulkar had written that Chappell had visited him at his house a few months before the World Cup and suggested that he take over the captaincy from Dravid.

Chappell has stated that he visited Tendulkar's house only once, almost 12 months before the alleged incident reported in the book took place.

"The claims made in Sachin's new book were brought to my attention earlier today," Chappell told cricket.com.au. "Whilst I don't propose to get into a war of words, I can state quite clearly that during my time as Indian coach I never contemplated Sachin replacing Rahul Dravid as captain. I was therefore very surprised to read the claims made in the book.

"During those years, I only ever visited Sachin's home once, and that was with our physio and assistant coach during Sachin's rehabilitation from injury, at least 12 months earlier than what was reported in the book.

"We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon together but the subject of captaincy was never raised."

Tendulkar has been scathing in his criticism of Chappell in the book, describing him as a "ringmaster who imposed his ideas on the players without showing any signs of being concerned about whether they felt comfortable or not." Tendulkar said that Chappell wanted to drop senior players from the side and several players were relieved to see Chappell go "which was hardly surprising because, for reasons hard to comprehend, he had not treated them fairly."