Chetan Sharma’s career was completely upended in a short period. A week into his second tenure as head of the BCCI men’s squad selection committee, the former India bowler offered his resignation to secretary Jay Shah, who accepted it on Friday.
Reportedly, BCCI did not explicitly ask Sharma to turn in his papers, but it’s easy to see why he would have done so if given the chance. After Sharma was caught in a “sting operation” by ZEE Media revealing sensitive information about the inner workings of the Indian squad, his status as head selector stood in jeopardy.
The leadership of BCCI did not like Chetan Sharma’s remarks. Sources close to the BCCI have informed the news agency PTI that the team’s captains, Rohit Sharma, and Hardik Pandya, as well as head coach Rahul Dravid, have “lost trust in him” after the broadcast of the “sting operation” on February 14.
“Coach Rahul Dravid, captains Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya have completely lost faith in him. He couldn’t have possibly sat across the table along with them for selection committee meetings as he had lost all respect. He paid the price for being a big mouth,” said a BCCI source.
BCCI Source (in PTI) said "Dravid, Rohit, Hardik have completely lost faith in Chetan Sharma. He paid the price for being a big mouth".
— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) February 17, 2023
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Chetan Sharma was caught on camera in the sting operation claiming that many players use injections to hasten their comeback to competitive cricket when they are just 80-85 per cent fit.
The ex-Indian fast bowler also claimed that he and the team’s management had differing views on whether or not fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah should recover from a stress fracture in time for the T20I series in September against Australia.
He further said that Hardik Pandya, the T20I captain, Umesh Yadav, the fast bowler, and Deepak Hooda, the wicketkeeper, all paid him frequent visits at his home.
Chetan discussed the friendship between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and said that Kohli had an ego clash with former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly.
Because of India’s poor performance in the T20 World Cup in Australia, Sharma and the whole selection committee were fired. He had previously held the position of chairman and had successfully filed for reappointment.
To date, Chetan Sharma has played in 23 Tests for India and 65 One Day Internationals (ODIs), in which he has taken 61 and 67 wickets respectively.
