New Delhi: This was after a fan put out a video of the players sitting inside an indoor restaurant on Twitter on Friday. He claimed to have been seated close to them and also talked about getting a hug from Pant after he paid for the players’ meal. He later retracted the claim about the hug after it raised serious questions on a breach of protocol.
The BCCI brass had initially ruled out any investigation after reports of a possible breach first appeared in the media here, but Cricket Australia’s late statement said a joint probe is on.
“The BCCI and CA were today alerted to a video post on social media that purported to show Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Navdeep Saini eating at an indoor venue in Melbourne on New Year’s Day,” CA said in a statement. It has been learnt that the Indian Cricket board will back its players as the general consensus is that there hasn’t been any deliberate breach. There is a feeling that Indian team might just come together like 2007-08 ‘Monkey Gate’ controversy when Andrew Symonds had claimed that Harbhajan Singh had abused him racially. As per protocol, players are allowed to eat out in outdoor settings, following social distancing norms. “The players were standing outside the restaurant and due to drizzle, they had gotten inside. If this is a way of trying to unsettle the team before the third Test, it’s a bad ploy by Cricket Australia,” a senior BCCI official said. Asked if Cricket Australia could disallow the three players (Rohit, Pant and Gill) from taking part in the next Test, the official said: “Firstly, they are allowed to train. Secondly, I don’t think it will come to that as then there could be adverse implications.”
