Irritated by the public spat between Ravi Shastri and Sourav Ganguly, former India captain Bishan Singh Bedi believes the CAB president should have kept cool instead of going out for all-out war.
“Where’s the need to rake up all this nonsense?” Bedi seems demanding an answer as former India captain, currently, CAB president Sourav Ganguly took a dig at Ravi Shastri on television for speaking out on his absence at the Team India head coach interview in Kolkata last week.
“The media will have a ball,” smiles Bedi. He even defends Shastri’s view of being “disappointed but not miffed” at missing out on becoming head coach of a team whom he enjoyed guiding for 18 long months.
Bedi also suggests Sourav should have kept his cool. “Look, Ravi spoke out because he was disappointed. It’s natural and I can understand that because he got dropped. But there is no need for Ganguly to react. He should have kept cool instead of taking his gloves off,” says Bedi.
The Delhi-based all-time great spinner believes the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) working committee meeting that CAB chief Ganguly had to attend to skip interviewing Shastri (on Skype) for the coach selection should have been rearranged some another time.
“The meeting could have been adjusted. The working committee meeting is a domestic affair while the coach interview is an international commitment. It’s ridiculous that there is a controversy involving two India captains… it’s stupid and undesirable,” he says.
As an administrator, Ganguly has to take criticism on his chin, Bedi suggests. “You can’t be reacting to every criticism. This (criticism) is part of your job. People in authority should never be in a position to prove a point.
“There were three others in that committee (Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, and coordinator Sanjay Jagdale). You (Ganguly) don’t have to prove any point,”he says.
Then what could Ganguly have done in response to Shastri’s outburst? Bedi claims: “You could have just rung him and thrashed it out instead of going to the media. Ravi did not go to the media — he was asked questions.”
Meanwhile, Bedi’s heart goes out to new Indian coach Anil Kumble: “Think about what all this will do to Kumble who has just taken over. This (fight) has created a mess; it’s such a petty issue.”
Anil Kumble’s appointment as the new coach of the Indian team has left Ravi Shastri red-faced and fuming. The former team director even expressed his anger saying he was disappointed after missing out on the job and also felt hard done by after all those hard works he put in with the Indian team.