Autobiography: Greg Chappell hits back at Sachin Tendulkar

He made his remarks as he responded to extracts released from the autobiography of Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, entitled 'Playing It My Way'.

The autobiography will be released soon.

"The claims made in Sachin's new book were brought to my attention earlier today," Chappell told cricket.com.au.

"Whilst I don't propose to get into a war of words, I can state quite clearly that during my time as Indian coach I never contemplated Sachin replacing Rahul Dravid as captain," he said.

"I was therefore very surprised to read the claims made in the book," he said.

"During those years, I only ever visited Sachin’s home once, and that was with our physio and assistant coach during Sachin’s rehabilitation from injury, at least 12 months earlier than what was reported in the book," Chappell said.

"We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon together but the subject of captaincy was never raised," he said.

Tendulkar has reportedly lashed out against former India coach Greg Chappell in his forthcoming autobiography “Playing It My Way”, media reported.

It has been learnt that Tendulkar described the veteran Australian cricketer as ‘ringmaster’, who imposed his ideas on players.

According to the excerpts released in the media, in his autobiography, the Indian batting legend also wrote about the spat Chappell, who was then the coach of the national Indian cricket team had with skipper Sourav Ganguly over the former’s reservation about Sachin’s batting position in the one-day team.

Earlier in the previous excerpts that was it was revealed that Tendulkar wrote about the dark days he survived in a career.

Other Indian cricketers like Harbhajan Singh and VVS Laxman have backed the claims made by Tendulkar in his  autobiography.

"Chappell took Indian cricket backwards," Laxman told NDTV.

"In 2006, it was the worst dressing-room I was part of. I have played under various coaches and captains for 16 years but that year was the worst atmosphere in a dressing-room," he said.

"More than anything else, it was very evident that there was an attempt to create a rift. A cricket team is like a family and there is no point in creating a divide between seniors and juniors. It was very unfortunate. The seniors felt very insecure. We never understood why Chappell thought that way when the seniors were playing well," Laxman said.

Harbhajan Singh said Chappell was a man with 'two faces'.

"Sachin is absolutely right. Greg Chappell was a man with two faces," Singh told media.

He said Chappell tried to follow the policy of divide and rule.

Singh said the result of the 2007 World Cup could have been 'much better'.

Rahul Dravid has refused to comment on the issue.

"I don't want to comment on the issue," Dravid told media.

"I will read the book first. After reading the book, if I feel it is necessary to make a comment on the issue then I will do it," he said.