Indian wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha has kept newsmen busy from last few days. After he was dropped from India’s Test squad for the series against Sri Lanka, he revealed that the Head Coach Rahul Dravid had told him to consider retirement as he no longer fits in the team’s scheme of things.
He also claimed that the BCCI president had told him not to worry about his place in the team as long as he is at the helm of affairs.
But what has triggered uproar is Saha’s Twitter post in which he shared a screenshot of threatening messages he had received from a ‘respected journalist’. The screenshot shows a host of messages by an unknown journalist who allegedly threatened Saha for not giving him an interview. The journalist told him “he doesn’t take insults kindly and will never interview him.” He also said that he would always remember this.
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
From the screenshot, there doesn’t seem any provocation on Saha’s part. In fact, he ignored those messages and chose not to respond.
Many former Indian cricketers have lent their support and expressed solidarity with Saha, “Extremely sad. Such sense of entitlement, neither is he respected nor a journalist, just chamchagiri. With you Wriddhi,” Virender Sehwag wrote on Twitter.
Extremely sad. Such sense of entitlement, neither is he respected nor a journalist, just chamchagiri.
With you Wriddhi. https://t.co/A4z47oFtlD— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) February 20, 2022
Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri also threw his weight behind Saha and requested the BCCI president Ganguly to take stock of the situation. “Shocking a player being threatened by a journo. Blatant position abuse. Something that’s happening too frequently with #TeamIndia. Time for the BCCI PREZ to dive in. Find out who the person is in the interest of every cricketer. This is serious coming from ultimate team man WS,” he wrote.
Shocking a player being threatened by a journo. Blatant position abuse. Something that's happening too frequently with #TeamIndia. Time for the BCCI PREZ to dive in. Find out who the person is in the interest of every cricketer. This is serious coming from ultimate team man WS https://t.co/gaRyfYVCrs
— Ravi Shastri (@RaviShastriOfc) February 20, 2022
Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Parthiv Patel and Venkatesh Prasad also condemned the threats dished out to Saha.
Now, the BCCI has decided to investigate the matter thoroughly. “The matter cannot be put to rest until every single detail of what Saha has said in the interview and the tweet he shared is looked into,” a BCCI official told to a national daily.
“Saha is a contracted cricketer of the BCCI. The onus is on the Board to not let its own player down. That aside, if there is any kind of a nexus at work here, one has to look into it,” he added.
“If the sender of those messages indeed happens to be a journalist covering Indian cricket, the Board will take steps towards banning him,” he concluded.
Saha last played a Test for India in 2021 against New Zealand at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.