Wasim Jaffer resigned from the post of head coach of Uttarakhand state cricket team amidst a huge controversy after Cricket Association of Uttarakhand (CAU) secretary Mahim Verma and team manager Navneet Mishra accused him of showing religion-based bias in players’ selection.
Jaffer had taken over as head coach in 2020 and was recently accused of demanding the presence of a maulavi inside the team bubble and preferring Muslim players in his team selection decisions.
On the contrary, Jaffer has reasoned that he resigned due to the constant interference of Verma and other officials in decision making, especially with team selections.
"It is very disheartening and it is very sad, to be honest. I have worked with so much intensity and I was fully committed to being the coach of Uttarakhand. I always wanted to push the deserving candidates. It seemed like that I was fighting for every little thing. There was so much interference of the selectors, sometimes non-deserving players are being pushed," Jaffer told ANI.
"The secretary Mahim Verma has a lot of interference, whenever you talk to him, he says to talk to him. There were many roadblocks and he never responded to me. Towards the end, they selected the team for Vijay Hazare Trophy and I was not kept in the loop.
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"The secretary Mahim Verma has a lot of interference, whenever you talk to him, he says to talk to him. There were many roadblocks and he never responded to me. Towards the end, they selected the team for Vijay Hazare Trophy and I was not kept in the loop.
They changed the captain, 11 players were changed, if things have to go down like this, then how can one work? I am not saying that I will select the team, but if you do not take my recommendation then what is the point of me being there," he added.
Mahim Verma has accused Jaffer of misbehaving with him and trying to influence players’ selection by pushing his choices on the state selection committee.
Amidst this controversy, Wasim Jaffer has received the support from cricket community including the likes of Dodda Ganesh and Anil Kumble. Now former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has also extended support to Jaffer.
“Unfortunate that you have to explain this,” Irfan tweeted in response to Jaffer’s explanation on the whole matter.
