Don’t drag my name to sensationalise your opinion: Anushka Sharma on Farokh Engineer’s claim of selectors serving her tea

Farokh Engineer in an interview had slammed the current Indian selection committee and went on to say that he had seen them serve tea to Anushka during the 2019 ICC World Cup.

Film actress Anushka Sharma on Thursday took to Twitter to voice her opinion on her name being dragged into the affairs of Indian cricket. Anushka, who is married to Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, primarily responded to comments made by former India wicket-keeper Farokh Engineer in an interview.

File photo of Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma (right) and former India wicket-keeper Farokh Engineer (left).(AP/PTI)

Engineer, in an interview to Times of India, had slammed the current Indian selection committee and went on to say that he had seen them serve tea to Anushka during the 2019 ICC World Cup.

“All they were doing was getting Anushka Sharma (Kohli’s wife) cups of tea,” Engineer was quoted as saying in the interview. 

Reacting sharply to this comment Anushka wrote, “And the latest version of these ill intended lies is that I was being served tea by selectors at matches during the World Cup! I came to one game during the World Cup and sat in the family box and not the selectors box as reported. But when has the truth mattered when it’s about convenience!”

ALSO WATCH | Bangladesh team in Delhi for 1st T20 as concern over pollution peaks

Here is the full text of Anushka’s tweet:

“I have always been of the opinion that maintaining silence on false and fabricated news and stories against one if the best way to deal with your detractors. This is how I have handled my career for 11 years now. I always saw dignity and truth embedded in the shadow of my silence.

They say, say a lie so many times repeatedly that it starts to look like the truth and I am afraid this is what had been happening with me. My silence has made the lies spitted against me seem true but that ends today.

I have stayed quiet through all the times I was blamed for the performance of my then boyfriend, now husband Virat and continue to take the blame for the most baseless things involving Indian cricket. I kept quiet then; My name has been used in fabricated stories claiming that I am part of close-door team meetings and influenced selection processes and I have been kept silent. My name has been wrongfully used to say how I have been given preferential treatment or how I have overstayed my authorised time with my husband on foreign tours which if anyone really cared about finding facts from the board, would know that I have always and always followed protocol but yet, I kept quiet.”

Anushka’s outburst comes after former India cricketer Farokh Engineer launched a no-holds-barred attack on current Indian selection committee led by MSK Prasad. Engineer went to the extent of terming Prasad and Co. as ‘mickey mouse selection committee’.

“How are the selectors qualified? Between them, have they played about 10-12 Test matches. I didn’t even know one of the selectors during the World Cup and I asked him ‘who the hell he was’, because he was wearing the India blazer and he said he was one of the selectors. All they were doing was getting Anushka Sharma cups of tea,” Engineer said in an interview to Times of India.