Injured Sehwag on way home, Dhoni a little hurt

Posted : June 10 2009

The Board of Control for Cricket in India confirmed on Tuesday that Virender Sehwag would play no further part in the tournament, but the announcement came after the matter had snowballed into a full-blown controversy.

The BCCI press release said that the opener, who missed the two warm-up games as well as India's 25-run victory over Bangladesh on Sunday, would return to India after consulting with specialists in England. Dinesh Karthik was named as his replacement.

Sehwag batted in the nets for the first time on this trip today, but his outing lasted just 12 deliveries, before he walked back into the changing rooms at the Lady's Bay ground.

There was some speculation then that the opener would be returning home, but at the mandatory pre-match press conference, Mahendra Singh Dhoni refused to take questions on what were at the time still rumours of Sehwag's departure.

A question was posed to Dhoni about the lack of information over the last five days, on what seemed like a serious injury, from the team management, and complaints were made about information getting leaked through unofficial channels. The media manager, Anirudh Choudhary, repeated that the BCCI would send out a release within 24 hours, but it was pointed out that the question had been put to Dhoni and not him.

The Indian captain, not amused by the tone of the query, lashed out. "I am not leaking the information, that's for sure. If anyone here is accusing me of leaking information, they can stand up and say so."

Dhoni, furious by now, clammed up, and the team manager, Chamundeswar Nath, got involved in a heated exchange with a section of the media. "If Sehwag has got pain in the hand, he might not bat," Nath said.

"Today he tried and he was in some discomfort. Tomorrow, we will take a final decision on him. If he is not fit enough we will inform BCCI and they will issue a press release. How much pain Sehwag is having, Dhoni cannot answer when he is batting in the nets."

There has been little clarity about Sehwag's shoulder injury on this trip, resulting in an uneasy relationship between the team and the media contingent. After the second warm-up game, Dhoni's responses to questions about Sehwag's fitness had been ambiguous, while Gary Kirsten had said before the first game that the opener had picked up the shoulder injury after the squad reached England, but that it wasn't serious enough for him to miss the whole tournament.

Last week, the team took offence to reports of a rift between the captain and the opener, and denied it in no uncertain terms - the entire team lining up together to release a handwritten note to the media.

Since then, there has been a complete clampdown on any interaction between the sides outside of the mandatory post and pre-match press conferences. After Tuesday's exchange, things aren't likely to get any better.

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Injured Sehwag on way home, Dhoni a little hurt

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