Coach Gary Kirsten chose Team India’s T20 tour-end meeting on Wednesday to express displeasure about the lack of fitness, commitment and discipline of several players in the side. He specifically named players who turned up for the tournament in poor physical shape and lacked intensity.
According to sources within the team, Kirsten spoke about the fitness reports of Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Rohit Sharma that showed them to be grossly overweight. He took a swipe at them, saying he at 42 was fitter than them. Serving an ultimatum to the unfit players, he told them to “utilize the one-month break to do a bit of soul-searching”.
The team meeting was preceded by a series of one-on-one meeting with seven under-performing players. It is unlikely that Kirsten will be passing on minutes of the meeting to the BCCI but the chances are that these issues will figure in the team manager’s tour report.
BCCI Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty refused to comment. “We will wait for the manager’s report. In case there is something serious, we will act,” he said.
Sources said Kirsten wanted a strict alcohol ban on the players and a code of conduct in place to arrest the drastic slide in discipline and fitness levels. This comes in the wake of players refusing to follow curfew orders by the team management and insisting on their freedom and privacy.
Coach saw it coming, spoke to seniors
Coach Gary Kirsten’s criticism of the fitness levels of some team members, their commitment and lifestyle patterns after India’s disastrous World T20 campaign in the Caribbean did not come suddenly. It came almost eight months after he fired the first salvo.
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