Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world, particularly in the Indian subcontinent region. People here treat cricket as if it were a religion, and they adore cricketers as if they were gods. Cricket has come a long way since its modest beginnings, particularly in India, and is now a big industry. There were various factors that led to cricket’s phenomenal growth.
Because of the advent of telecasts, sponsorships, leagues, commercials, and other considerations, cricket has grown into a lucrative enterprise and a blockbuster hit. However, there is one constant component that has quietly contributed to Cricket’s extraordinary progress throughout the years and that is the cricketers’ own aura.
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Cricket is regarded as a gentleman’s sport. Participants are supposed to carry themselves professionally and appropriately, as it was traditionally a game for English nobles.
However, Cricket is not without controversy, and while some of them can be viewed as part of the process, others require further investigation. Here are several major revelations that shocked the whole athletic world and demonstrated that there is still a lot of room for improvement in terms of ethics, sensitivity, and transparency. So, let’s go through with them:
1. Yuzvendra Chahal recently made maybe the most unsettling disclosure of all when he revealed that he was once dangling from the 15th level of a building by an intoxicated player in 2013. Chahal remarked in a video for the Rajasthan Royals, the franchise for whom he currently plays:
“My story, some people know about. I have never spoken about this, I never shared this. In 2013, I was with the Mumbai Indians. We had a match in Bengaluru. There was a get-together after that. There was a player who was very drunk, I will not take his name. He was very drunk; he was looking at me and he just called me. He took me outside and he dangled me from the balcony.”
“Had there been a small mistake there, I would have fallen down.”
A shocking account of bullying during his time at Mumbai Indians from Yuzvendra Chahal
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) April 9, 2022
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2. Regrettably, this is not the time when Chahal faces such kind of bullying. He speaks out about such life-threatening bullying earlier. Chahal claims that in 2011, Andrew Symonds and James Franklin totally bound him and taped his lips before going about their night and forgetting about him. He said,
“It was in 2011 after winning Champions League in a Chennai hotel. He [Andrew Symonds] had drunk a lot of “fruit juice” (laughs). I was with him, only. James Franklin and he tied my hands and legs, and said ‘now you have to open’. They were in so much masti they have taped my mouth and forgot all about me. Party got over and in the morning, when a cleaner came, he saw me and freed me. They asked from when have I been here like this and I told them, ‘from the night itself’.”
James Franklin and Andrew Symonds allegedly tied up Yuzvendra Chahal and left him overnight while the trio were teammates at Mumbai Indians.https://t.co/2XHvxRHIo9
— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) April 9, 2022
3. Robin Uthappa recently disclosed that he was forced to sign documents to quit Mumbai Indians following the inaugural season of the IPL on the condition that his identity be kept hidden. He claims that he was threatened with doing the same thing. He said,
“So, I was along with Zaheer Khan and Manish Pandey. I was one of the first people to be transferred in the IPL. For me, it became extremely difficult because my loyalties were completely laid out with MI at that point. It happened a month before the IPL and I refused to sign the transfer papers. Someone from MI, I won’t name him, had told me that if I didn’t sign the transfer papers, I’d not get to play in the XI for MI.”
When Robin Uthappa refused to sign transfer papers to join RCB from MI during 2009.
They said “if you don’t sign, your aren’t get to play in 11 for MI”#OneFamily 🤲🏼 #MI pic.twitter.com/5PLZxmvRZO
— Marc Spector (@sylesh146) April 7, 2022
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4. When Danish Kaneria, a Pakistani cricketer, stated that his colleagues would not dine at his home due to his faith. He did say, though, that Shoaib Akhtar and a few other veteran players treated him like everyone else, for which he was grateful. He said,
“The players who didn’t like to talk to me just because I was a Hindu. Soon I will reveal their names. I did not have the courage to speak in this regard, but now I got the courage to speak on this issue when I heard Shoaib’s statement.”
5. When Wriddhiman Saha shared a screenshot of text messages from a journalist, the journalist threatened him, stating, “This wasn’t something you should have done.”
Following this, the BCCI launched an investigation into the situation. Boria Majumdar then acknowledged that he was the one who sent the SMS to Saha.
After all of my contributions to Indian cricket..this is what I face from a so called “Respected” journalist! This is where the journalism has gone. pic.twitter.com/woVyq1sOZX
— Wriddhiman Saha (@Wriddhipops) February 19, 2022
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6. Harbhajan Singh claimed in 2019 that several older players, including VVS Laxman, left cricket on a sour note because the management wanted to construct a fresh squad, despite the fact that some of them were World Cup winners. He said that in doing so, it entirely overlooked the veteran players.
“Many players from the 2011 World Cup could have played the next World Cup. Like Me and Yuvi, Gambhir, certainly we could have played the next world cup but we were dropped. I don’t know what was the agenda of leaving us all aside. It was like your work is done now you can leave. We have to make a new team. Why do you need a new team? You need it when the team has not won. We won the World Cup and you should take the team forward.”
7. During the 2015 Ashes, an Australian player insulted English batsman Moeen Ali by calling him “Osama.” Moeen was adamant about not taking his name.
“It was a great first Ashes Test in terms of my personal performance. However there was one incident which had distracted me. An Australian player had turned to me on the field and said, ‘Take that, Osama.’ I could not believe what I had heard. I remember going really red. I have never been so angry on a cricket field.”
“An Australian player had turned to me on the field and said, ‘Take that, Osama.’ I could not believe what I had heard”
Moeen Ali alleges racial abuse during 2015 Ashes https://t.co/dlwJ5YZFyq pic.twitter.com/fuVkUd77Dd
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) September 15, 2018
8. Meanwhile, Darren Sammy was dubbed “ka*lu” by IPL players in a similar tragic situation closer to home.
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“In hindsight, asking for apology I shouldn’t have even done that. If me and my team-mates have done something not intentionally, but now I realise that could be deemed or termed as something that could be hurtful to a team-mate of mine. So whether I get an apology or not, it doesn’t change the mentality of how proud I am to be a black person, to be a black man. It doesn’t change.”
. @ICC and all the other boards are you guys not seeing what’s happening to ppl like me? Are you not gonna speak against the social injustice against my kind. This is not only about America. This happens everyday #BlackLivesMatter now is not the time to be silent. I wanna hear u
— Daren Sammy (@darensammy88) June 2, 2020
For too long black people have suffered. I’m all the way in St Lucia and I’m frustrated If you see me as a teammate then you see #GeorgeFloyd Can you be part of the change by showing your support. #BlackLivesMatter
— Daren Sammy (@darensammy88) June 2, 2020
9. When Virat Kohli informed the BCCI that he intended to stand down as the T20 captain, he said there was no talk of his becoming the ODI captain.
This was in marked contradiction to Sourav Ganguly’s statements, in which he said that because Kohli was adamant about retiring as T20 captain, he was stripped of his ODI captaincy for the sake of uniformity across limited-over forms.
👀
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) December 15, 2021
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10. Days later, it was claimed that Ganguly wanted to give Virat Kohli a show-cause notice, but the board refused since the squad was heading on tour to South Africa.
However, this assertion was emphatically refuted by Ganguly.
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