Former India opening batsman Virender Sehwag has made some explosive revelations during a chat show with Hindi news channel India TV.
The maverick opener did not hold back his thoughts while speaking about his recent application for the position of the head coach of the Indian cricket team.
In the end it was Ravi Shastri who had bagged the lucrative appointment but Sehwag has now said that he wouldn’t have applied for the post had he known that the former would apply too.
The Najafgarh-born opener said “When I was in England during the Champions Trophy, I had asked Ravi Shastri that why he hasn’t applied for the post? Shastri then told me that he will not repeat the mistake which he had already made once.”
“If Ravi had applied earlier, then I don’t think there would have been any chance of me applying for the post. I would have never applied,” Sehwag added.
The coaching job had ultimately fallen to Ravi Shastri.
Shastri had earlier applied for the position of the team’s coach last year but the job had gone to Anil Kumble, whose tenure came to a tumultuous end after some friction with skipper Virat Kohli in June this year.
The most controversial comment that Sehwag made in the no-holds-barred chat on the show was that he had been overlooked for the job due to lack of personal connections with the BCCI top brass.
Whether the former Delhi batsman was implying that Shastri got the job due to his personal connections is not clear but the fact remains that Saurav Ganguly, a member of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) tasked with the responsibility of selecting the new coach, was staunchly opposed to Shastri’s appointment.
Sehwag also said that he had sought the opinion of Kohli before applying for the post and the India skipper had given him the green-light to go ahead.
“I also had a word with Virat Kohli, he asked me to go for it. It was only then that I applied. If you ask for my opinion, I would say that I was never interested.
“I thought since they are requesting me, I should help them. I never thought of applying on my own nor will I ever apply in future,” he said.
Sehwag said he had consulted former-teammate Kohli before applying for the job.
Sehwag said that he had been coerced into applying for the job by the BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary and GM (Game Development) M.V. Sridhar.
It is clear that Sehwag remains hurt about the snub and he has made it clear that he will never apply for the position again in the future.
Shastri’s tenure meanwhile has got off to a rollicking start with team India clean-sweeping the Test and limited-overs series during the recently concluded tour of Sri Lanka.
Team India are now getting ready to take on Steve Smith’s Australia in a five-match ODI series starting on Sunday at Chennai.