Suresh Raina calls Greg Chappell top 'Talent Hunter', reveals his role in getting MS Dhoni

Team India's former all-rounder Suresh Raina on June 12 announced the release of his autobiography on his official Twitter handle. Suresh Raina shared his video and said that his autobiography 'Believe' takes people on his journey of all 'ups and downs'. Now, Suresh Raina's autobiography, an excerpt of which was published in mid-day, utters some unexplored truths of the Indian cricket team and also recalls the Greg Chappell era when the former Australian cricketer became Team India's coach. 

Suresh Raina calls Greg Chappell top 'Talent Hunter'

Suresh Raina in his book has lauded Team India's former coach Greg Chappell under whom the left-hander got his break into the squad. In fact, Suresh Raina credited Greg Chappell for helping develop youngsters in the team and shed light on the relationship dynamics between seniors and juniors. In his Suresh Raina also revealed that like the team created by Sourav Ganguly gets its praise, similarly, credit for getting many youngsters into Team India goes to Greg Chappell. 

"The team that Dada (Sourav Ganguly) created has always been widely appreciated for making a mark in cricketing history," he writes adding, "However, the credit for so many of us youngsters making it into that team goes to Greg, since he was the one who prepared us to take that challenge."

"He and Kiran More Sir, as the chief selector, were the ones who supported this move. Greg is the number one talent-hunter. He always ensured that the youngsters got their due in the Indian team. And he played an enormous role in getting the likes of RP Singh, MS Dhoni, S Sreesanth, Murali Kartik, and Irfan Pathan among others to play for India with a lot of success."

Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly fall-out

Ganguly was dropped from both the ODI and Test team after returning from the Zimbabwe tour in 2005. He was also stripped off the captaincy. Ganguly's axing from the Indian team became one of the most talked-about incidents of Indian cricket. It was Chappell, who is held responsible for Sourav Ganguly's ouster. 

Chappel was offered a new contract at the end of his tenure, however, he decided that he wasn’t going to face that kind of stress from the resistance. The Ganguly vs Chappell phase ended after Sourav Ganguly was brought back into the team. The outrage against Greg Chappell as the head coach reached its peak when India lost to Bangladesh in the group stages of the 2007 World Cup. India were subsequently knocked out of the tournament after losing to Sri Lanka.

(Image Credits: BCCI/Greg Chappell/Twitter)