Cricketers must have ’relation with Bollywood actresses’, tattoos to get selected: Ex-cricketer speaks on ‘BCCI politics

A day after Indian pacer Mohammed Shami made headlines with his comments about not being selected for the playing XI and playing only a few matches, another former player Subramaniam Badrinath raised questions about the team selected for the T20I and ODI series against Sri Lanka.

The T20I series against Sri Lanka will begin on July 27, with the second match on July 28 and the third on July 30. The ODI series will start on August 2, followed by the second ODI on August 4 and the third on August 7. The Lanka series is also something to watch out for as it will mark the first tour for Gautam Gambhir as Team India’s Head Coach. Since the squad was announced, questions have been raised about the omission of several deserving players from both the series.

While discussing on Cric Debate With Badri, Subramaniam Badrinath expressed his frustration stating that CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad was overlooked for the Sri Lanka series, as he was not included in either the T20I or ODI squads. One of his remarks from the discussion has since gone viral, where he claimed that cricketers might need more than just strong performances to secure a spot in the Indian squad.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, he said in Tamil, “Sometimes it seems like you need a bad guy image when the likes of Rinku Singh, Ruturaj Gaikwad and others are not selected for the Indian team. It seems that you need to be in a relationship with some Bollywood actresses, have a good media manager, and have body tattoos,” Badrinath said in the video clip,” as quoted by MyKhel Tamil.

Netizens have agreed over the unfair selection of the Team India squad. One user said, "Justice for Ruturaj BCCI politics for Ruturaj and Nattu.

Another said, “Ruturaj Gaikwad is all format player like Virat Kohli in future”

#Justice for Ruthuraj Gaikwad, some other wrote.

“Justice for Natrajan, Sai Sudarshan, Varun Chakravarty (Nattu, varun were in top 3 of purple cap list, Sai was in top 3 in orange cap list)”

“Gambhir doesn't like Dhoni. That's the reason he's sidelining Ruthu?”

“If fitness matter then why Hardik Pandya was vc for T20 world cup this is full politics even Rutu proved himself but dropped, this is worst selection”

“In T20 cricket Ruturaj Gaikwad is far ahead of Gill. As usual BCCI have forgotten Tilak Varma. Mohammed Siraj, Ravi Bishnoi are proven candidates to certain extent.”

Earlier, Shashi Tharoor had also raised concerns about India's squad for the Sri Lanka series, questioning the exclusion of Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma from the ODI and T20I teams, respectively. Abhishek Sharma had scored his first domestic century in the T20I series against Zimbabwe, while Samson had made a century in the last ODI series against South Africa.

Mohammed Shami too, in a recent interaction with Shubhankar Mishra on his YouTube show ‘Unplugged,’ spoke about being missing from the field despite taking a good amount of wickets. The pacer took a veiled attack on Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri for dropping him in the 2019 World Cup.