India’s chief cricket selector resigns

NEW DELHI (AFP): India’s chief cricket selector Chetan Sharma resigned Friday, an offical told AFP, after a TV network sting caught him gossiping about players and claiming the widespread use of unsanctioned injections to pass fitness tests.

The 57-year-old had accused ex-captain Virat Kohli and former cricket board chief Sourav Ganguly of an ego clash in a candid conversation recorded on a hidden camera and aired by broadcaster Zee News.

Kohli felt he was “bigger than the board” but felt slighted after concluding that Ganguly had forced him out of the white-ball captaincy, Sharma said.

Sharma also claimed that doctors operating outside of the cricket board’s oversight regularly gave Indian international players injections to help them pass fitness tests for selection, without giving further details. KL Rahul acrobatics help put India in charge of second Test.

“He has given his resignation and it has been accepted,” a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Press Trust of India quoted an unnamed BCCI official who said Sharma’s position had “become untenable” after the sting.

“He resigned voluntarily and wasn’t asked to resign,” PTI reported the official as saying.