On Tuesday, a former member of the National Selection Committee, Chetan Sharma put harsh allegations about players in the Indian men’s national cricket team. He revealed that, players in the national team use injections to speed up their recovery to cricket and even call doctors to get injected.
Chetan Sharma has come into the limelight as he disclosed such unexpected facts during a sting operation.
In a video Chetan Sharma said, “Even if players are 85% fit, they ask us to let them play even though the medical science does not clear them. Players never refuse to play matches and want to play. There is Bumrah who cannot even bend properly right now. There are one or two such major injuries that happen. Otherwise, at 80% of fitness, these players take an injection, come to us and tell us that they are fit to play.”
According to the former selector, players do not take painkillers because they require a prescription and violate anti-doping rules. The injections that are excluded from the anti-doping regulations are generally known to the players. He said, “They do not take painkillers. They take injections and nobody gets to know about it. They will have to take prescriptions or painkillers and will get caught in anti-doping. Players are well aware of the injections which do not come under anti-doping.” The ex-chief selector disclosed that players even call up doctors to get injected. “They are big superstars. Do they really face shortage of doctors? They can have them come to their house after making a phone call and he will give them an injection,” Sharma said.
Chetan Sharma also talked about the controversy of India’s star batter and former captain Virat Kohli’s “ego issues” with BCCI president Sourav Ganguly. He said that Kohli started considering himself “bigger that the Board” and had tried to “hit back” at the former BCCI president as he felt that Ganguly had removed him from ODI captaincy.
He said, “When the player becomes popular, he considers himself to be bigger than the Board and thinks that nobody can touch him. He feels that cricket in India would stop without him. But has that ever happened? Some of our biggest cricketing stars came and went but cricket remained the same. So he (Kohli) tried to hit back at the (former) president at that time. It was a damaging controversy. It was a classic case of a player going against the BCCI. The president represents the BCCI, isn’t it? As to whose fault it was will be judged in time but it was an attack on the BCCI. All our players are discouraged from doing this because the loss will be theirs as everyone will go against them even if the president is at fault. There has to be some respect to the chair.”
