On Friday, the young Indian cricketers Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul have been suspended pending an inquiry into their controversial remarks on women during a TV show, ruling them out of the ODI series against Australia starting Saturday. They faced a lot of heat on various social media platforms following their sexist remarks while appearing on an Indian TV Show, were omitted from the line-up for the opening match in Sydney.
As per the quoted in PTI, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) chairman Vinod Rai said, “Both Pandya and Rahul have been suspended pending an inquiry.”
It has also been expected that the BCCI will soon be issuing fresh show-cause notices before a formal inquiry begins.
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Describing the same, a BCCI official said, “Whether it will be an internal committee of the BCCI or an ad hoc ombudsman who will conduct an inquiry, is yet to be ascertained. The Indian team management will take a call on whether they would want to keep the two with the team or send them back. There is a school of thought that they are kept with the team as the backlash back home could be severe but the majority in BCCI brass is against the decision.”
In case the two are brought back from Australia, the players like Rishabh Pant and Manish Pandey will be in contention to be their replacements. The decision to suspend them came after Rai’s CoA colleague Diana Edulji recommended suspension till further action against the two. This was after the BCCI’s legal team refused to declare the duo’s comments a violation of the code of conduct.
Edulji was the one who referred the matter to the legal cell after Vinod Rai agreed with her and recommended the same.
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The comments on the show were also condemned by the Indian skipper Virat Kohli, who called them inappropriate and asserted that the side does not stand by “those individual opinions”.
During the show, Pandya had boasted about hooking up with multiple women and being open about it with his parents during the interview. However, Rahul was a shade more restrained in his responses to relationships and women. There have also been some rumors which suggested that the BCCI might bar players from appearing on entertainment shows owing to the ongoing furor.
