Mumbai, May 18: The Board of Cricket Control in India issued the show cause notices to six players, including senior members Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan for their alleged involvement in a pub brawl in St Lucia after India’s humiliating exit from Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies.
Besides Yuvraj and Zaheer, show cause notice has been served to Ashish Nehra, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla and Ravindra Jadeja.
The tough stand by the Board came in the wake of tour manager Ranjib’s Biswal’s report to BCCI President Shashank Manohar and his meeting on Monday with the latter at BCCI headquarters.
The Board decided to crack the whip on these players after a hue and cry was raised in the media about the brawl on the night the team crashed out of the tournament following their third straight defeat in the Super Eight stage.
The hardened stand of the Board came after Biswal met Manohar and Srinivasan to give them first-hand information of the happenings in the Caribbean.
The incident for which the players are about to be hauled over the coals happened at the "Tequila Joe’s" pub on May 11 at Gros Islet after India lost to Sri Lanka in their last Super Eight fixture and crashed out.
According to reports, six Indian cricketers were in the same pub when the fans started taunting and abusing them for their failure to reach the semi-final and the cricketers reacted leading to the brawl.
The reports were promptly denied by Yuvraj on his Twitter page where he wrote "There was no fight, not even an argument" and asked the media not to "make up stories".
After returning home, Nehra too denied there was a brawl in which the players were involved.
Ndtv