World Cup 2015: BCCI warns Virat Kohli to maintain dignity of Indian team

Star Indian batsman Virat Kohli was on Friday reprimanded by the BCCI for his abusive behaviour towards a journalist and asked him to “maintain the dignity of the team” and avoid such incidents in the future. “The player in question (Kohli) has been told to maintain the dignity of the Indian team at all times, and avoid any such behaviour in the future,” said the newly elected BCCI secretary, Anurag Thakur, in a statement. The statement said that Board has firmly asked the Indian team managment to ensure that incident that happened post India’s practice session here on Tuesday is not repeated. [caption id=“attachment_2113227” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Virat Kohli. AFP[/caption] “The BCCI has taken note of the incident that occurred at Perth a couple of days ago. The BCCI has been in touch with the Indian team management on this issue, and has advised that this kind of incident should not be repeated,” said Thakur. The BCCI’s stand on the controversy comes a day after the team management sought to down play the incident and even denied that Kohli hurled abuses at a journalist of a leading newspaper. Subsequently, the newspaper decided to write to BCCI and the reporter involved lodged a complaint with the ICC. Thakur urged the concerned parties to move on and focus on the team’s World Cup campaign. “The BCCI respects the role played by the media in covering and popularising the game of cricket, and acknowledges the support of the media, in its mission to administer and promote the game of cricket in India. “The BCCI would like to request the concerned parties to move on, and focus on the Indian cricket team’s campaign in the ongoing ICC World Cup 2015,” added Thakur. Meanwhile, The Hindustan Times, whose reporter was abused by Kohli, has decided not to take the matter any further. “In the interest of India’s World Cup campaign, we do not wish to take this matter any further. Anurag Thakur has been very accommodating and it is a refreshing change from the cricket administrators in the recent past,” HT’s Sports Editor Sukhwant Basra said. The incident raised serious questions over Kohli’s conduct once again. He suddenly lost his cool after the training session on Tuesday as he hurled abuses at a journalist ahead of the side’s group league game against West Indies at the WACA on Friday. Once he was done with his training and was returning to the dressing room, Kohli saw a scribe of a national daily in front of him. To the horror of that journalist, Indian batting’s mainstay started using filthiest of language and it went on for some time before he stormed off and some of his team members looked amazed as to what exactly had happened. The particular journalist also seemed clueless but once Kohli cooled down, he told someone about an article that had appeared about him and his girlfriend Anushka Sharma in a national daily and he thought that it was that particular journalist, who had written the story. When he was told that he had mistaken this particular reporter as someone else, Kohli called one of the journalists and through him apologised for the incident. PTI