Ganguly, widely regarded as one of India’s most influential captains, was dropped from the one-day team, and later, the Test team in 2005, and was replaced by Rahul Dravid as skipper. His controversial spat with newly-appointed coach Greg Chappell was widely publicised by media, especially after Chappell’s email to BCCI, containing a scathing assessment of Ganguly, was leaked.

“I know you can’t get justice all the time,” Ganguly told Bengali daily Sangbad Pratidin, recalling the tumultuous time, “but even then that treatment could have been avoided. I was the captain of the team which [we] had just won in Zimbabwe and I get sacked after returning home?

Despite his rather public fallout with the coach, Ganguly said that he did not blame Chappell alone, alleging that “everyone was involved” in a scheme to remove him from the team.

“The others are not innocent either,” he said. “A foreign coach who doesn’t have any say in the selection cannot drop an Indian captain. I had understood that this is not possible without the support of the entire system. Everyone was involved in the scheme to drop me. But I didn’t crumble under pressure. I didn’t lose confidence in me.”