The resignation of Wasim Jaffer as the head coach of the Uttarakhand cricket team brought along some communal allegations against the former India opener. From preferring players on the basis of their religion to allowing a maulvi in the team’s dressing room, some grave charges were levied against Jaffer after his exit from the team.
While Jaffer has distanced himself from all such allegations, the presence of a maulvi in the team’s dressing room is also a matter of bubble-breach which is being investigated by the management. Uttarakhand pacer Iqbal Abdullah has now claimed that it wasn’t the head coach Jaffer but the team manager who had allowed the maulvi into their dressing room.
Cricket Association of Uttarakhand (CAU) secretary Mahim Verma revealed that team manager Navneet Mishra has been asked to file a report on the alleged bubble-breach in the team. Verma had earlier claimed that he was told by the players that it was Jaffer who allowed maulvi into the team dressing room, team captain Abdullah has now refuted the claim.
“We cannot offer Friday’s namaaz without a maulvi. We offered namaaz only when our practice got over at around 3:40 pm. I first asked Wasim bhai if I could call the maulvi for prayers. He told me to get permission from the team manager. I spoke to manager Navneet Mishra and he said, ‘koi nahi Iqbal, prayer-dharm first (no problem, prayer and religion is most important).
“The manager gave me the permission and that is why I asked the maulvi to lead the prayer,” iqbal told The Indian Express.
Iqbal further revealed that the maulvi was called into the dressing room twice. Had the manager not given him the permission, Iqbal asserted that he would not have called the maulvi.
“If the bio-bubble was in place, would the team manager have given me permission to call the maulvi? If the manager had said ‘no’ I would not have called the maulvi,” he said.
Over the allegations against Jaffer, Abdullah said that he was pained seeing the former India international being subjected to such criticism as he had never tried to communalise the team.
“Wasim bhai always put the team first and never tried to communalise the team. As a cricketer, one never wants to hear such allegations. I spoke to Wasim bhai, he is hurt. These allegations are being made to divert from real issues.”
Over the allegations that Jaffer had asked the players to ditch ‘Rambhakt Hanuman ki Jai’ chant, Abdullah said that the team had many chants and Jaffer only asked them to stick to one that had Uttarakhand in it.
“During the camp, we used to sing Baar baar haan, bolo yaar haan, apni jeet ho, unki haar haan. On one day, it was ‘Jo Bole So Nihaal’. On another ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Then one player said we should chant ‘Go green’, then came ‘Go Uttarakhand’, then came ‘Chalo Uttarakhand’ and then ‘Chalo Rishikesh’. We had some 50 slogans during the three-month camp. Wasim bhai said we should stick to one slogan for the team like ‘Go Uttarakhand’ or ‘Let’s play, Uttarakhand’. As ‘Let’s play, Uttarakhand’ is a bit long, everyone decided to stick to ‘Go Uttarakhand’,” Abdullah said.
