BCCI leashes unbridled CHAPPEL

Kolkata, Mar 2 (UNI) BCCI has sent a letter to national coach Greg Chappell restraining him from making personal opinions to the media about the players and hoping that the Sourav Ganguly episode will not be repeated again.

BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah, talking to UNI from Rajkot, said,''I spoke to Board President Sharad Pawar this afternoon and we discussed the issue at length''.

''I have sent a mail to Mr Chappell that he should restrain himself from making comments of personal nature about the players to the press. This is unwarranted and not expected of him,'' Mr Shah said.

The mail further stated that BCCI hoped that the Ganguly episode would not be repeated in future.

We have made it clear that in future Mr Chappell should restrict himself to making cricketing comments when he speaks to the press.

It is expected that he speaks about the team, its success and failure and nothing more, he said.

Earlier, Mr Shah had said that a model code of conduct also existed for the coach and the support staff, though it was not so rigid as far as the players were concerned.

In the past, BCCI had sent letters to Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh for coming out with statements in favour of Ganguly.

What comments like this do is take the focus out of cricket and that is very sad, Mr Shah lamented.

Greg Chappell in course of an interview to a British Newspaper had said that Ganguly had a moneyminded approach to the game and thought he could deal with the Aussie as he did with his immediate predecessor John Wright.

The comment added further fuel to the already well documented clash of personalities between the coach and the former skipper.

UNI BA SP AY KP2006