BCCI slams Sandeep Patil over Sachin's retirement controversy
© Anurag Thakur Facebook
BCCI President Anurag Thakur, on Tuesday, has criticized former selection board chairman Sandeep Patil for spilling the beans over the retirement controversy of Sachin Tendulkar and the captaincy of MS Dhoni. Thakur also said that the “right people in the BCCI” will talk to Patil on the issue.
After recently ending his four-year stint with the BCCI as the chairman of the selection panel, Sandeep Patil disclosed that the selection panel would have dropped Sachin Tendulkar before he eventually quit international cricket and that the panel had also considered stripping Dhoni of ODI captaincy ahead of the 2015 World Cup.
The comments were expected to stir a storm within the BCCI and evidently the Board's President Anurag Thakur on Tuesday has hit back at the former selection chief.
"Let me make it very clear. Sandeep being a former chairman should not have made these comments. When he was the chairman, he replied differently to the same questions. But after that (his tenure), it was different. It was totally unethical of him to do that," Thakur told PTI.
"One should refrain from making such unethical and unwanted comments in this area (selection matters). It is because he has been trusted to become the chairman, because he has played enough cricket. There were four more selectors with him, they did not say anything. He (Patil) should have avoided that," the BCCI chief said.
Asked whether any action against Patil is being contemplated by the Board over the breach of confidentiality, Thakur said, "Right people in the BCCI will speak to him soon."
Thakur also stressed that this breach of confidentiality will make it difficult for Patil's future employers to hire him.
"Any organisation, if they hire him (Patil), will think 10 times that after leaving the organisation, he will speak about the organisation," he said.
Besides revealing the backstage details about Dhoni and Tendulkar, Patil while speaking to a TV channel, had also said that current coach Anil Kumble and Test captain Virat Kohli had spoken to Cheteshwar Pujara on improving his strike rate as the batsman struggled in the recent tour of the West Indies.
Thakur also took a dig at the reforms proposed by the Lodha committee regarding the appointment of the selection panel by saying, "People are shying away from getting into the BCCI. Former cricketers who run academies and have some role in the state associations are ruled out under Conflict of Interest. What does a cricketer do after retirement if he can't contribute to the game of cricket?"
