Yograj Singh tears into BCCI selectors for pushing careers of 'these seven players into gutter'

Yuvraj Singh’s father, Yograj Singh, is again back at making the headlines. After continuously tearing into former India captain MS Dhoni, his leadership style and how it ended several cricketing careers during his tenure as team skipper, Yograj now bashed the BCCI selectors during the late 2000s in his latest outcry.

Known for being vocal and loud about his thoughts all these years, Yograj didn’t mince his words in blaming the selection committee for acting spineless and destroying the careers of at least seven cricketers, including Yuvraj Singh, who was responsible for India’s two World Cup wins across formats before that.

While Yuvraj was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour called mediastinal seminoma in his left lung shortly after India's 2011 World Cup win at home, his comeback following his recovery never convinced the selectors to hand him the extended rope, unlike Dhoni, per Yograj.

Speaking in a recent chat with InsideSport, Yograj blamed the selectors for pushing the careers of prominent cricketers into the gutter during the away tours of England and Australia in 2011/2012.

“You destroyed these boys for no reason,” he said.

However, all those concerned here include Yograj’s son Yuvraj, former India opener Gautam Gambhir, batter Mohammad Kaif, Test specialists Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman and bowlers including Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. While Dravid and Laxman announced their Test retirements soon after, others were phased out from the starting XI across formats, not even included in the 2015 World Cup plan.

A Times of India (TOI) report also claims that Yograj recalled turmoil within Indian Cricket following their grandest ICC win in 2011. Yograj also revealed that the selection committee back then, including former cricketer Mohinder Amarnath, wanted to sack MS Dhoni as the India captain after a 0-4 mauling Down Under; however, nothing of that ever happened, thanks to the then-BCCI president, N Srinivasan, who reportedly blocked this move.

Meanwhile, despite all of this happening in the background, MS Dhoni remained India’s white-ball captain till 2016 before handing over the baton to Virat Kohli, who led India to massive heights in Tests, especially. Dhoni, however, continued to play till the 2019 ODI World Cup in England, after which he announced his international retirement on August 15 the following year.