John Wright and Sourav Ganguly

New Delhi: Sourav Ganguly may have lost his captaincy and a place in the national side after a bitter spat with current coach Greg Chappell, but it now transpires that even the previous coach, John Wright, favoured his sacking.

Admitting a fallout with Sourav towards the end of his stint as Team India coach, the former New Zealand captain has said there were times when the Bengal batsman may have also wanted a change of coach.

Wright has let out some of these titbits on his much-speculated relationship with Sourav and controversial selection decisions in his book ‘Indian Summers’, released in New Zealand on Thursday.

“As much as I respect Sourav and acknowledge his record as captain and contribution to cricket, I believe there were sound arguments for a change in leadership towards the end of my stint,” Wright wrote in his book.

“There may well have been times when he favoured a change of coach. What really mattered was that the two of us saw the bigger picture, worked as partners to provide leadership on and off the field and got results. In that last season though, the results dried up.”

The former New Zealand captain also said that it was Sourav who masterminded the appointment of Sunil Gavaskar as consultant for India’s home series against Australia in 2004-05 without taking him into confidence.

“Two days before the first Test (in Bangalore, against Australia in 2004), I was notified that the legendary Sunil Gavaskar would be joining us as a batting consultant,” he wrote.

“I couldn’t work it out. Gavaskar solved the mystery by revealing in a team meeting that he had a text message from Sourav. I was far from happy because as the head coach I should have had the final say on support staff issues,” Wright revealed.

“...If the captain decides to bring someone into the camp two days before a Test against the best team in the world, there’s not a hell of a lot you can do about it.”

Wright also said he was frustrated during selection committee meetings, which were nothing short of a farce.

“The first six or seven selections were straight forward. But when it got down to the marginal selections, those last three or four spots that determine the balance of the team and your ability to develop new players, the zonal factor kicked in and things would get interesting,” he said.

“It was easy to tell when selectors had come to a meeting with an agenda... If their boys weren’t picked, they tended to cross their arms, clam up and take no further part in the meeting,” he wrote.

Wright said V.V.S. Laxman and Mohammed Kaif bore the brunt of the selectors’ whims. “Laxman and Kaif are examples of outstanding performers who always seemed to be only one or two failures away from having their places questioned.”

In another context, Wright wrote that Kaif had rubbed the then England captain Nasser Hussain the wrong way through his overzealous conduct during one of the matches.

“Kaif had managed to get under Hussain’s skin... He clearly bugged Hussain when England were in India and in another instance, he had a real go at Kaif telling him to shut up and called him a bus driver.”

Wright said there is still a reluctance in India to take tough decisions against the “superstars”. “The exceptions are the superstars. There’s still reluctance to give an under-performing or unfocused big name a blunt message by having him sit out a tour or a few one-dayers.” (PTI)