Dungarpur denies lashing out at Ganguly

Raj SIngh Dungarpur denies he made any disparaging remarks about Sourav Ganguly © Getty Images

A day after the controversial remarks that got India's tour of Pakistan off to the worst possible start, Raj Singh Dungarpur, the former BCCI chief who is manager of the squad, emphatically denied that he had made disparaging remarks about Sourav Ganguly. Calling it "irresponsible journalism of the worst kind", Raj Singh told Cricinfo that the footage shown had not involved live quotes, but merely indirect ones.

"I have tremendous respect for Sourav, and he has tremendous experience," he said. "My job is to make every member of the side as comfortable as possible. I have been manager of the Indian team four times and would never compromise on my integrity. I am really amazed. I'm sad and I'm sorry. I've made no such statements. My picture has been shown on the television channel and I'm not speaking anything, and they're saying that this is what he has said.''

"This is not the first time I am managing an Indian team, this is the fifth time that I have been made the manager of the side. How could I have ever said that? Until now, I never had any such experience from any batsman whether from India or abroad. I think this puts a big question mark on the integrity of whoever is doing this.''

On Friday evening, an Indian TV channel had quoted Raj Singh as saying: "Sourav is not a student of the game. He is also not a role model of a captain. A captain cannot be the laziest and possibly the worst fielder of the side." According to the channel, Raj Singh had also spoken of John Wright's unhappiness at Ganguly's slovenly ways. He was reported as saying that Wright had expressed his frustration many times, but "he was a little mild. He had huge problems with Sourav."

Ganguly, along with Virender Sehwag, Anil Kumble and Parthiv Patel, arrives in Lahore on Saturday. After the furore over his non-selection for the Ahmedabad Test against Sri Lanka and the subsequent recall to the team for this tour, this was yet another needless incident ahead of a series that means so much.