Chappell needs more time and space - Wright

John Wright, who has experienced the best and the worst of Indian cricket during his five-year tenure as India's coach, has asked for some time and space for Greg Chappell, his successor, to make a difference to the Indian team.

Chappell has had a stormy start to his tenure and the publication of a confidential email in which he had declared Sourav Ganguly "mentally and physically unfit" to lead India, has inflamed passions and polarised opinions. Despite an uneasy truce imposed by the Indian board, observers visualise a difficult period ahead if both Chappell and Ganguly stay in their current positions.

Wright, however, was confident that Chappell would be able to work his way through. "There will always be a couple of bumpy issues along the way when you are in a coaching situation," Wright said, "but I am sure the coach and team will be able to work together."

Wright refused to get into discussions about Chappell's methods, saying that coaching styles differed from person to person. When asked if he was too soft on some of the players, Wright said: "The bottom line from my perspective as a coach is I work in my way. I know that several people made judgments on how I approached the job and generally it's from their perspective. I know the way I did the job and I feel we made progress. At the end of the day you do it the way you want to do it. I certainly don't have qualms about not being hard in the job.

"I think you have to ask the players about those sorts of things. I had several years with the team - I enjoyed it, I loved the fans over there. It was probably my most enriching cricketing experience. We took the team to a certain stage and Greg and his team should take it a bit further forward."

"My last seven months with the one-day team - the form was poor and Greg's going about sorting that out. I know that they can play and they'll get the results," he said. "I always felt that India could be number one. They're ranked third in the Test rankings and one-day form can turn around very quickly, as we showed in the World Cup [in 2003] and the ICC Champions Trophy [in 2004]."