Are Senior Indian players involved in Harsha Bhogle’s sacking?
Apr 11, 2016 at 1:54 PM
The removal of cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle from IPL 9 is still a mystery. Without saying anything, BCCI terminated Harsha’s IPL contract. There are a few angles (or conspiracy theories) floating around on the social media. The new inclusion is two senior players of the Indian team filed a complaint to BCCI for Harsha Bhogle’s sack.
The reputed commentator has been saying that “I still don’t know the reason.” He was on the panel until 48 hours before the tournament began and was even requested to ‘okay’ booking of his flight tickets. “The next day I received an e-mail saying my services are not required,” he had said earlier.
There hasn’t been any word from the BCCI headquarters on the issue, while the support for Bhogle on social media continues to grow.
But what can now snowball this into a major controversy as some reports suggest that some of the senior players in the Indian team may have complained to the board after a match in the recently concluded ICC World T20.
“The previous generation – when you had the likes of Sourav [Ganguly], VVS [Laxman], Rahul [Dravid] and Sachin [Tendulkar] around – was too classy and too big in stature to get involved in such petty instances,” he told TOI, adding that he had “no idea” of any such development.
Earlier it has been reported that Bhogle’s exclusion from the commentary panel had something to do with his angry verbal duel with Vidarbha Cricket Association official in Jamtha, Nagpur.
The controversy may also find its root in Amitabh Bachchan’s tweet sometime back. “With all due respect, it would be really worthy of an Indian commentator to speak more about our players than others all the time.”
That tweet was later retweeted by an Indian captain. “Nothing to add,” MS Dhoni said quoting Amitabh on his timeline.
It must also be noted that some of the Indian cricketers-namely Dhoni, Suresh Raina and R Ashwin-have of late chosen to be sarcastic in their reply to media at press conferences.
It happened first after India’s one-run win over Bangladesh in Bengaluru during the World T20 group match, where Dhoni got angry replying to a question , saying, “I know you are not happy that India has won.” He later, in Mumbai after India’s defeat in the semi-final, called an Australia journalist on the dais when he asked about Dhoni future plans.
Dhoni was also reported to be sarcastic towards a photojournalist during nets in Mohali before the match against Australia.
Recently, Raina’s reply to a question on India’s next coach also made heads turn. “Are you happy with your wife or someone else?” he had said in his reply when asked if he would like an Indian coach or a foreigner.
On Friday, before the IPL-9 opener, Ashwin told a journalist to “frame your question better” when the offspinner was asked how he would counter the dew in Mumbai since Dhoni gave him only two overs in the World T20 semi-final a few days back.