The most infamous row between captain and coach in the history of cricket took place between Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly during the mid-2000s. In his autobiography, he revealed that bringing the former Australian as the coach of India was his suggestion as he impressed with his knowledge on the game.

“In our previous meetings he had impressed me with his deep cricketing knowledge,” Ganguly writes in his autobiography “A Century is Not Enough.”

He revealed that when John Wright signed out as the coach of the Indian cricket team, he saw the former Australian player as the best possible for the role and relayed that message to then president of the BCCI, Jagmohan Dalmiya.

“I thought Greg Chappell would be the best person to take us to the number one slot from the challenger’s position. I had conveyed my personal choice to Mr (Jagmohan) Dalmiya when they were looking for a new Indian coach,” the book reads.

He was, however, warned by Sunil Gavaskar about the suggestion as the latter claimed that Chapell’s coaching record wasn’t all that great.

“A few people advised me against this move. Sunil Gavaskar was one of them. ‘Sourav, think about it. With him around you might have problems in running the team. His past coaching record is not spectacular, he told me,” writes Ganguly.

And then came the bomb from Dalmiya, who told Ganguly that even Greg’s brother Ian Chappel had warned them against signing his brother.

“He shared in confidence that even his brother Ian thought Greg might not be the right choice for India. Well, I decided to ignore all these warnings and follow my instincts,” Ganguly writes.

“The rest as they say is history. But then that’s life. Some scripts go your way, like my tour of Australia, and some don’t, like the Greg chapter. I conquered the country but not one of its citizens,” he says.

After that, Ganguly reveals his fury at being dropped as both a player and the captain, despite scoring a century in the last Test series. He uses words like “unthinkable”, “unacceptable” and “unforgivable.”

“This (the year 2005) remains the most turbulent chapter of my life. Not only was my captaincy suddenly taken away for no reason but I was also dropped as a player. I feel angry even as I write this. What happened was unthinkable. Unacceptable. Unforgivable,” he writes.