By IANS
Sydney : Former Indian cricket coach Greg Chappell has claimed that the attack on him, when the Indian team arrived in Indian city of Bhubaneswar to play a one-day international (ODI) against the West Indies January this year, was racially motivated.
In a report, based on a television documentary, published in The Australian newspaper here Wednesday, Chappell said: “I got hit on the side of the head and my immediate reaction was ‘he’s broken my jaw’.”
“Indians are very quick to complain about racism. There are plenty of Indian cricketers the guy could have attacked but he chose to attack me,” said the former Australian captain, who is now the head coach of the Rajasthan Cricket Association academy in Jaipur.
Guru Greg, a documentary, is to be shown on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television Thursday.
The man who attacked Chappell said he was protesting the non-inclusion of players from the state of Orissa in the team.
He disagreed that the allegedly biased selection policies was the reason for attack on him.
“If that was the case why didn’t he accost the chairman of selectors or someone else who might have been involved in the selection process?”
“I don’t really buy the fact that he was talking about the lack of Orissa players in the Indian team. Why would he attack one of the foreigners in the group – me as coach? There’s a bit more to it than that.”
Chappell also said that the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) officials tried to play down the incident in which he escaped serious injuries.
“The whole thing was played down. The only phone call I got from the BCCI asked me whether it really happened,” he said.
Chappell stressed that the attack was racially motivated.
“As I said to the BCCI in a letter, had it been one of the players who was attacked there would have been an outcry but because it was me no-one seemed to care,” he said.
“It was quite obvious it was a serious assault. It wasn’t just a push in the back as the media was led to believe. There was a cover-up. Everyone went into cover-up mode.”
Chappell, whose two-year contract ended in March, also disclosed that by the time of the attack, he had decided not to seek renewal of his contract.
“By that stage I had pretty much decided that the end of the contract was the end of the contract.”