Poor form in my last 7 months: Wright

In a turnaround of sorts from his earlier published statements, John Wright admitted today to poor results in the last months of his tenure ...

In a turnaround of sorts from his earlier published statements, John Wright admitted today to poor results in the last months of his tenure and said he hoped that his successor Greg Chappell would fix it.

‘‘My last seven months with the (India) one-day team…the form was poor and Greg’s going about sorting that out’’, Wright told reporters here today ahead of the final Super series one-dayer with Australia tomorrow.

In his e-mail to the BCCI, Chappell had stated that Wright had allowed things to go on ‘‘to the detriment of the team’’. In his initial response soon after, Wright said he stood by his record.

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Today, he was more expansive in his appraisal of his successor. ‘‘There will always be a couple of bumpy issues along the way when you are in a coaching situation, but I hope Greg and his team can take it a bit further forward.’’

Wright defended his gentlemanly demeanour against criticism that he was not tough enough to get his way in the politically-charged world of Indian cricket. ‘‘I don’t want to get into that conjecture, but the bottomline from my perspective as a coach is I work in my way. I know that several people made judgments on how I approached the job and generally it’s from their perspective’’, Wright said.

‘‘I think you have to ask the players about those sorts of things. I had several years with the team — I enjoyed it, I loved the fans over there. It was probably my most enriching cricketing experience. Wright said he remained a keen observer of Indian cricket and had no doubts that India could one day reign as the world’s number one cricket team.

‘‘I always felt that India could be number one. They’ve been third in the Test rankings and one-day form can turn around very quickly, as we showed in the (2003) World Cup and the (2004) ICC Championship.’’