A man who never played on Indian soil in his 14-year international career and scored just 368 of his 7,110 Test runs and 105 of his 2,331 one-day runs against the country will now coach the Indian cricket team for the next two years.

Legendary Australian batsman Gregory Stephen Chappell, like many foreign players, never hid his dislike for India and its conditions many years ago, even though not playing in India made a dent in his career statistics.

However, to be fair to 56-year-old Chappell, Australia toured India once during his career and it coincided with the rebel Kerry Packer Super Series in which he was a key player.

That was the only opportunity Chappell, appointed the national coach Friday, got to confront the likes of Srinivas Venkataraghavan - who was in the board panel that interviewed him - and Dilip Doshi on the spin-friendly pitches of the subcontinent.

Chappell, whom a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official termed a "czar" of cricket, may have missed the enticing encounters in India but he has a stature of his own.

A strong advocate of simple methods of coaching, Chappell reportedly made an impressive presentation to the six-member BCCI panel here Thursday - enough to beat the likes of former players Mohinder Amarnath of India, Desmond Haynes of the West Indies and former Australian all-rounder Tom Moody.

Chappell, who had an eventful career, took to writing and commentary before making a foray into coaching after his playing days.

He also launched a website - Greg Chappell Cricket Centre - that unashamedly declared "cricket is our business". The website sells cricket equipment, clothing and footwear at five centres in three Australian cities.

Chappell, who played 87 Tests and 74 one-day internationals between 1970 and 1984, also writes a hard-hitting newspaper column. He wrote a popular book on coaching, "Greg Chappell on Coaching: The Making of Champions", as well as "Greg Chappell's Health and Fitness Manual", "The 100th Summer", "Unders And Overs: The Controversies of Cricket" and a few titles.

And he has now landed what many experts believe the most coveted but challenging job in world cricket - Indian cricket coach.

In fact, Chappell termed his appointment as "exciting and challenging" at his first press conference after the announcement Friday.

Chappell takes over the reins from former New Zealand captain John Wright, who had a fairly successful four-and-half-year tenure during which India reached the 2003 World Cup final in South Africa.

Chappell, beaten by Wright in the race for the India coach's job in 2000, will now have a challenge to emulate the left-handed opener from across the Tasman Sea.

The Australian has less than two years to build a team for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. He will have the advantage of taking over a well-settled outfit built by Wright and captain Sourav Ganguly.

Chappell, however, will have his own ideas and methods of coaching and would like to implement these when he joins the team in the dressing room as India plays a one-day triangular series in Sri Lanka in August.

--Indo-Asian News Service