DHARAMSALA: Wednesday was perhaps the worst day in Indian pacer Mohammad Shami’s life. It began by his wife,
Hasin Jahan, publically accusing him of assault and having extramarital affairs. She posted screenshots of text messages of questionable nature that Shami allegedly exchanged with various women.
By evening, the 27-year-old got another big jolt when he found his name missing from the list of 26 players who’ve received belated contracts by
BCCI for the 2017-18 season. In an unprecedented move, the BCCI has withheld Shami’s contract till he’s cleared of the serious allegations made by his wife. According to sources, the decision was taken by the Supreme Court-appointed
Committee of Administrators
(
CoA
), which is supervising the functioning of the board these days.
“It’s a personal issue, and we shouldn’t be commenting on it. Actually, we were in a bit of a dilemma on this point. At one level, this (the BCCI contract) is purely a professional issue and we can’t interfere with his personal matter. However, there’s a small element of ethics involved also. Someone could’ve taken a stand that his wife is making serious allegations... so we thought that we’ll verify (the allegations against him) over two-three days and then we’ll take the call,” a top board official told TOI on Wednesday.
“We just want to be sure. We’ve heard that even the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) wanted us to take a call on this issue. Our problem is that there’s no ombudsman or ethics officer in the BCCI right now. So, the CoA had to take a call. We’ll find out how genuine the matter is. It’s his personal matter; this is now out in the media. What bothers us is that he plays for India,” he added.
Another BCCI official explained the matter further. “We’ve just kept his contract on hold. It isn’t a disciplinary action; we want to enquire whether the allegations are true. He isn’t in danger of losing his contract. This has been done temporarily. If everything is okay, he’ll get his contract. It may be a false case,” he said.
When told it was a personal issue of the star cricketer, the official said: “Ben Stokes was also a personal issue. So, we’ve to be careful about whether it affects the image of the BCCI,” he asserted.
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