BCCI favors Saha, bans Boria Majumdar for 2 years!

According to the latest reports, BCCI has banned journalist Boria Majumdar for two years for “threatening and intimidating” India wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha.

The ban, which includes not getting press accreditation for any matches in India, an embargo on interviewing centrally contracted players and no access to any of the cricket board’s and state units’ facilities, has been made effective after the Apex Council rubber-stamped the three-member fact-finding committee’s recommendations.

 The three-member committee comprising the cricket board’s vice-president Rajiv Shukla, treasurer Arun Dhumal and the BCCI Apex Council member Prabhtej Singh Bhatia found him guilty of “bullying” Saha.

On Wednesday, the BCCI’s interim CEO Hemang Amin wrote to all the member units, informing them about the punishment meted out to the journalist and requesting for compliance.

“The BCCI Committee considered the submissions by both Mr Saha and Mr Majumdar and concluded that the actions by Mr Majumdar were indeed in the nature of threat and intimidation. The BCCI Committee recommended the following sanctions to the Apex Council of BCCI. The Apex Council of BCCI agreed with the recommendations of the BCCI Committee and imposed the following sanctions: i. 2 (two) year ban on getting any accreditation as a member of the press in any of the cricket matches (domestic and international) in India; ii. 2 (two) year ban on getting any interview with any registered players in India; and iii. 2 (two) year ban on access to any of BCCI and members associations owned cricket facilities.”

Controversy sparked after Saha posted the tweet below on February 19, 2022.

As a result of this, BCCI probed a 3 member committee to look into this matter.

Many former international cricketers of India sympathized with the wicketkeeper batsman. Despite the seriousness of the issue, Saha decided not to name the journalist publicly. However, the cricketer did accuse Boria Majumdar in the court during the hearing.

As a response to these accusations, Mr Majumdar said,

“I’m filing a defamation case on Wriddhiman Saha. He has doctored, tampered and manipulated screenshots. Earlier today, I have sent the BCCI all the details and I have emailed everybody in the BCCI the entire sequence of events. I have also tweeted my side of the story.”

In his statement to the BCCI, the journalist had claimed that Saha’s manager visited his residence on February 1 and set up “two interviews as a brand building exercise”. On February 10, ahead of the IPL mega auction, Majumdar had sent some texts to the player via WhatsApp.

Even after the Tata IPL 2022 Mega Auction, Mr Majumdar sent a series of texts was sent on February 13. Gujarat Titans bought the talented wicketkeeper batsman for RS 1.90 crore.

The journalist in a statement, gave details of his WhatsApp texts to Saha, claiming that the latter had “confirmed an interview over Zoom”.

As per the statement, the context of the texts was “the disappointment over failure of Mr. Saha to comply with his professional commitment and hence was an expression of dismay by Mr. Majumdar”. The journalist had denied any threats or hostile action.