The Chairman of the Senior Selection Committee of men’s cricket Chetan Sharma was caught in a controversy on Tuesday after he revealed classified selection matters during a sting operation conducted by a TV channel.
Sharma allegedly said that former Indian Captain Virat Kohli tried to defame then BCCI President Saurav Ganguly as he felt Ganguly was responsible for him losing the ODI captaincy. Sharma said that the tussle between Kohli and Ganguly is the case of “two egos clashing”.
“Virat Kohli felt he lost the captaincy because of the BCCI president. There were nine people in the selection committee video conference, Ganguly told him ‘think about it once’. I think Kohli didn’t hear it, there were nine others there including myself and all other selectors, BCCI officials,” he can be seen saying in the video.
“Two egos clashing, one who is thinking that Ganguly has removed me from the captaincy, so I will teach him a lesson. He (Virat) gave a statement that Ganguly is doing this, basically to defame him. He (Virat) tried to tell this in the media…which backfired on him (Virat),” he said.
Sharma, who was recently reinstated by the BCCI after being removed following India’s showing in the T20 World Cup in Australia, was seen during the sting operation casting aspersions on players like Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah.
Sharma also allegedly revealed his internal discussions with Head Coach Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli during the sting conducted by Zee News. He said that a lot of players take injections to expedite their return to competitive cricket despite being 80 to 85 per cent fit.
He added that there was a difference of opinion between him and the team management over Bumrah’s return from a stress fracture for the T20I series against Australia in September.
Bumrah still continues to be out of action, and will likely miss the entire four-Test Border-Gavaskar series and the three-match ODI series after that.
He added that current T20 captain Hardik Pandya comes to his place to speak to him often about his future.
News agency PTI reported that the BCCI is looking into the matter, as national selectors are bound by contract and not supposed to speak to the media.
“It will be (BCCI secretary) Jay’s (Shah) call as to what will be Chetan’s future. The question is whether T20 skipper Hardik Pandya or ODI and Test captain Rohit Sharma would like to sit with Chetan in a selection meeting knowing that he has let out internal discussions,” a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
(With agency inputs)
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