Chetan Sharma. File
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
BCCI’s chairman of selection committee Chetan Sharma resigned from his post early on February 17, 2023. He sent his resignation to BCCI Secretary Jay Shah who has reportedly accepted it. The resignation comes amid a controversial sting operation conducted by Zee News which showed Mr. Sharma revealing classified selection matters.
“Yes, Chetan has tendered his resignation to BCCI secretary Jay Shah and his resignation has been accepted. His position had become untenable after the sting operation. He resigned voluntarily and wasn’t asked to resign,” a senior BCCI source told PTI on condition of anonymity on Friday.
Chetan Sharma was in Kolkata along with other selection committee members for the Ranji Trophy final between Bengal and Saurashtra. They were there to select the Irani Cup team.
It is learnt that Chetan’s comments did not go down well with the BCCI top brass, and the current national squad members also lost their trust in him.
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“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 another BCCI source.
Mr. Sharma was seen allegedly revealing his internal discussions with head coach Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli, along with casting serious allegations against some senior players in the team. He alleged that there was an ego tussle between former captain Virat Kohli and the former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly.
He also levelled allegations against some players that a lot of them “take injections” to expedite their return to competitive cricket despite being 80 to 85% fit.
Talking about former skipper Virat Kohli, he said that Kohli had started to think of himself “bigger than the Board” and had tried to “hit back” at the former BCCI president as he felt that Ganguly had removed him from ODI captaincy.
BCCI was looking into the matter, as national selectors are bound by contract and not supposed to speak to the media.