Jadeja, Sharma apologise for pub brawl incident

Zeecric Bureau

New Delhi: Team India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and middle-order batsman Rohit Sharma have apologised to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for their involvement in the pub-brawl incident that took place in St Lucia during the T20 World Cup. In an e-mail to the secretary of the BCCI N Srinivasan, Jadeja wrote: "I very much regret that the Board (BCCI) has to send me a notice for incident in West Indies, and please accept my apology.” Jadeja explained his position by writing that neither he nor any of his team members was involved in the brawl. "I beg to inform you that I had gone to the restaurant (pub) for dinner along with other Indian team members. Some other guests which I presume were Indian origins of USA also come to the restaurant and on seeing us they started abusing us, this may be because they were unhappy with our poor performance. We requested them not to abuse us but they did not stop despite of our repeated request. No way I was involved in any ugly brawl and I went to the pub only to have dinner with my teammates," Jadeja wrote in his e-mail to the board secretary. He also wrote: "If the Board still thinks that I have brought any disrespect to the game of cricket or our Board and our country, I once again sincerely tender my unconditional apology and assure you that I will take care that in future no way my name will be involved in any such incident.” Four of the six Indian players, who were asked by the Indian cricket board why action should not be taken against them for their role in the St Lucia pub incident in the West Indies, say they only reacted when the fans got abusive.The four either met a senior Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official individually or talked to him on phone to protest their innocence. "Going by what they graphically described to me, the incident absolves them of wrongdoing, though it is for the BCCI President Shashank Manohar to take a final call," the official said.The official, however, said the six players -- Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla and Ravindra Jadeja -- should explain their conduct as they have been given an opportunity to do so. "The only hitch is that the team manager (Ranjib Biswal) has told the BCCI chief about the incident and so the board had to act by issuing the players the show-cause notice," he said.