The Indian cricket team is not just hit by bad form but also rumours — those of a split and indiscipline.
First, it was the Rahul Dravid-Sourav Ganguly spat over captaincy. Followed by talks of a possible revolt by “unhappy” seniors after Ganguly was made the skipper.
Now comes the news in a section of the media — rubbished by the BCCI president and denied by the man whom it has been attributed to — that Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh have been reported for undisciplined behaviour during the Sri Lanka tour.
With the team having hit a rough patch, this is exactly the kind of news people will love to lap up.
India is going through a transitional phase and the lack of vision and proper planning from the board and the selectors is not helping the team. But that is a different story.
To suggest that the team members are at war with each other and have turned into an undisciplined lot, even someone like Sehwag — whom many see as a future captain — on the basis of flimsy, unattributed sources is not done.
Sanjay Jagdale, a genial, soft-spoken former Madhya Pradesh player, was quoted in a newspaper saying that he has, in his manager’s report of the Lanka tour, written that Sehwag and Yuvraj were creating trouble in the team. Once he read that these lines had been attributed to him, he did not know what hit him. “Why is this being done to me? I have not mentioned a single line in my report regarding this. Is someone playing a game?” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Sanjay Jagdale, a genial, soft-spoken former Madhya Pradesh player, was quoted in a newspaper saying that he has, in his manager’s report of the Lanka tour, written that Sehwag and Yuvraj were creating trouble in the team. Once he read that these lines had been attributed to him, he did not know what hit him. “Why is this being done to me? I have not mentioned a single line in my report regarding this. Is someone playing a game?” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Board chief Ranbir Singh Mahendra too was shocked. “This is all rubbish,” he said. “I have no report like this with me nor has the manager written anything like this.”
No doubt the team is a pampered lot and needs to be disciplined. But such stories, portraying the team as a bunch of squabbling schoolkids, certainly won’t help.