The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) may ban talk show host and journalist Boria Majumdar for two years. The three-member BCCI committee found him guilty of threatening Team India wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha. Not only this, the board is also preparing to blacklist him from the International Cricket Council (ICC).
A top BCCI official, on the condition of anonymity, told The Indian Express, “We will inform all the state units of the Cricket Board of India not to allow them inside the stadium. He will not be given media accreditation for domestic matches and we will also write to ICC to blacklist him. Players will be asked not to work with them.”
The Indian Express tried to get in touch with Boria Majumdar regarding this, but he neither responded to phone calls nor messages on Saturday. The matter came to the fore on February 19 this year. The 37-year-old wicketkeeper from Bengal shared a post on Twitter. It said, “After all my contributions to Indian cricket, I had to come across this thing from a so called respected journalist. Where has journalism reached today?
Saha also shared screenshots of the WhatsApp chat with it. One of them read, “You didn’t call. I will never interview you again. I don’t take insults easily. And I will remember that.” Following this revelation, Saha received widespread support from the cricketing community. Former India coach Ravi Shastri urged BCCI President Sourav Ganguly to take cognizance of the matter. However, Saha had initially said that he would name the journalist as he did not want to spoil anyone’s career.
Taking cognizance of the social media post, the BCCI constituted a committee comprising Vice President Rajeev Shukla, Treasurer Arun Dhumal and Apex Council member Prabhatej Bhatia to look into Saha’s allegations. Making a statement before the committee, Saha named Majumdar and alleged that he was threatened for an interview. Meanwhile, Majumdar had accused the cricketer of tampering with the screenshot of a WhatsApp message posted on Twitter and sharing it with the committee.