Indian players Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul facing suspension over sexist comments made on TV
India’s historic cricket tour of Australia has descended into scandal with two star Indian players ordered home for making sexist comments that have caused outrage in their homeland.
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Update: India’s historic cricket tour of Australia has descended into scandal with two star Indian players ordered home for making sexist comments that have caused outrage in their homeland.
The all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India suspended all-rounder Hardik Pandya and opening batsman Lokesh Rahul and ordered them to leave the tour of Australia amid an investigation into comments made about women on a TV celebrity show.
The BCCI said the pair would be stopped “from playing any form of cricket after their comments on a TV show.
“The duo will now return to India and an enquiry and proceedings will be made against them for misconduct and indiscipline.”
The announcement comes hours before the start of the first one-day international of a three-match series against Australia slated for Saturday in Sydney.
Pandaya has already issued an apology on his social media account after he boasted about having sex with multiple women, how he told his parents when he lost his virginity and the way he approaches women in nightclubs.
“I am a little from the black side, so I have to see how they move first. Then I can imagine,” he said on the show.
Rahul also appeared on the chat show Koffee with Karan and while his comments were not as crude as Pandya’s, he is also facing a likely ban, possibly as early as Saturday, as the public anger in the world’s most populated democracy threatens to boil over.
Just days after the Indian captain Virat Kohli was dancing with his teammates on the Sydney Cricket Ground to celebrate his country’s first Test series win in Australia, the skipper was back at the stadium to condemn the behaviour of Pandaya and Rahul.
“From the Indian cricket team point of view, any inappropriate comments that are made in that scenario are something that we definitely don’t support and the two concerned players felt what has gone wrong and they have understood the magnitude of what’s happened,” Kohli said.
“Definitely it has to hit anyone hard, they will definitely understand the things that have not gone right.
“We, definitely, as the Indian cricket team do not support views like that and that has been communicated. I can definitelysay that as the Indian cricket team and responsible cricketers we definitely don’t align with those views and those are purely individual views.”
Kohli said India could not finalise their team for Saturday’s first one day international against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground until they knew the outcome.
All-rounder Pandya is normally an automatic selection in India’s one-day team.
Sexual abuse and harassment of women has reached crisis levels in India and triggered a wave of protests across the countryas the #MeToo movement spreads.
Once regarded as almost untouchable, India’s cricketers aren’t immune to the accusations and the sport’s officials are keen to act decisively.
Under current regulations, the players could receive two-match bans but BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry said they should get stiffer penalties after India’s Committee of Administrators banned Steve Smith and David Warner from playing in the IPL for an entire season over the ball tampering affair.
“A two-match suspension seems to be merely a stopgap arrangement especially considering that the CoA had banned Mr. Smith and Mr. Warner for a season,” Chauhdry wrote. “The players must be immediately suspended pending a proper inquiry and must be allowed to join the team (if selected) only once they have gone through a proper sensitisation in addition to serving a ban, if imposed upon them.”
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Originally published as Indian players Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul facing suspension over sexist comments made on TV
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