Legendary Indian wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani has given support to Wriddhiman Saha amidst the ongoing controversy and compared his situation with the time when he was dropped from the Indian team in a harsh manner.
Wriddhiman Saha has been all over the headlines for all the non-cricketing reasons for a long time now, as after being dropped from the Indian team for the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka, he criticized Indian coach Rahul Dravid and BCCI President Sourav Ganguly.
He also open a pandora's revealing that he had received threatening messages from a journalist.
Amid the saga, a former cricketer said that he was also "a victim of injustice" when he was dropped from the Indian team and the same things are happening with Saha.
1983 World Cup winner Syed Kirmani told SportsKeeda: “Saha has got tremendous competition around him with all the youngsters performing well in the IPL and other limited-overs matches. He's obviously very sad, but every cricketer has to go through the ups and downs, right? We don't know what the selection committee and the team management think about the player. I have also been a victim of injustice, but nobody talks about it.”
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He further suggested Saha continue playing cricket till he enjoys the game. Kirmani added, “Saha is a brave cricketer. He should keep playing as long as he enjoys the game as I did. Retirement is in his own hands. Nobody can force him [to retire].”
Revealing how he was dropped from both the Test and ODI teams, Kirmani recalled: “I don't know. I was at the pinnacle of my career around that time. Yet, I was dropped from both the Test and ODI teams for no fault of mine. There was no competition around me.”
He added, “I played 88 Tests and was the savior of India's ODI team on many occasions. Do you know, wrong reports were published in the newspapers suggesting that I was performing poorly? While somebody else would drop a catch in the slip cordon, they [the media] would publish my photograph and insinuate that Kirmani had dropped a catch or missed a stumping.”
The legendary cricketer further said that his state team Karnataka didn't give him an opportunity to make a comeback, which forced him to move to the Railways team.
He signed off by saying, “I've always been a fighter. My own state [Karnataka] removed me from the team when I wanted to stage a comeback and honor my country. That's why I was forced to move to the Railways team. The then secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association [KSCA] said, 'Oh, so you're going to the Railways? Let's see how you perform there.' Is that how you talk to a World Cup winner and someone who has always been a team man?”
(SportsKeeda inputs)
