India's chief cricket selector resigns after undercover sting

NEW DELHI: India's chief cricket selector Chetan Sharma resigned Friday, an official 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.

"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.

Sharma was appointed chief selector in late 2020 and was reappointed in January after the BCCI sacked the entire selection panel following India's dismal T20 World Cup performance last year.

The former right-arm medium pacer represented India internationally until 1994 and in 1987 he was the first cricketer to take a hat-trick in a Cricket World Cup.

His exit comes in a bumper year for the international calendar, with India likely to make the World Test Championship in July and hosting the ODI World Cup in November.