As expected, Chetan Sharma on Friday morning resigned as chairman of BCCI’s senior selection committee following a sting operation conducted by a TV news channel. His resignation was promptly accepted by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Jay Shah.
“Chetan Sharma resigned on his own, and it has been accepted,” said BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla.
Shukla refused to be drawn into the controversy that erupted after a sting operation, but he denied that there was any rift among players or the Board. “BCCI is a one big family we all work together for the betterment of the sport,” he said.
Interestingly, Sharma was reappointed as chief selector in January, after the BCCI had sacked the entire selection committee in November following India’s poor showing in the T20 World Cup in Australia, and invited fresh applications.
He continued to function in his role until the new panel was appointed with him once again as the chief again.
Chetan, 57, played 23 Test matches and 65 ODIs for the country between 1984 and 1994 and after his exit the BCCI’s senior selection panel now has four members, Salil Ankola, SS Das, Subroto Banerjee and S Sharath.
In that sting operation, Chetan had alleged that a lot of players took injections to expedite their return to competitive cricket despite being only 80-85 per cent fit.
“Otherwise even at 80 per cent, these people…they are such scoundrels, they will silently go to the corner and take an injection and say that they are fit,” Sharma was allegedly quoted as saying .
But what seemed to have sealed his fate was his talking about the relationship between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and alleged that there was an ego tussle between Kohli and former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly.
“When the player becomes a little big, he feels that he has become very big.. He has become bigger than the board. Then he feels that No one can do anything to him. He can’t even bend my hair. Without me, cricket will stop in India. Has it ever happened? Many big ones came and went. Cricket remains the same. So, he tried to hit the President at that time,” he said.
“He (Virat) said… Sourav Ganguly had never said this to me (about re-considering the captaincy role). So it became a big issue. Either the President lied, or Virat is telling the truth. It became a big issue… then there was uproar.
He also alleged that there was a difference between him and the team management over pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah’s return from a stress fracture for the T20I series against Australia in September last year.
He also claimed that Hardik Pandya, Umesh Yadav and Deepak Hooda regularly visited him at his residence.