Before the semi-final clash against New Zealand in July, Manjrekar had called Jadeja a “bits and pieces player” and had excluded him from his playing XI against the Kiwis for which he was trolled heavily on the social media.
Former India batsman and current commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has labelled 2019 as the worst year for him as far as a cricket analyst is concerned. He spoke about his spat with all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja during the World Cup and also about the “unprofessional and indecent” comment he made about celebrated commentator Harsha Bhogle.
“I started this profession in 1997-1998, so it’s been about 20-21 years. It’s been the worst year for me as analyst and a commentator,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.
He also clarified that what he spoke about Jadeja was indeed what the all-rounder had heard and reacted to. However, he also added that he does not regret calling the left-hander bits and pieces cricketer as it was a commonly used phrase in cricket.
Jadeja took to Twitter to respond to Manjrekar: “Still I have played twice the number of matches you have played and I’m still playing. Learn to respect people who have achieved. I have heard enough of your verbal diarrhoea Sanjay Manjrekar.”
In November when India took on Bangladesh in a day night Test match, Manjrekar raked up another controversy when he got into a minor verbal spat with Harsha Bhogle over the visibility of the pink ball used in India’s maiden Day-Night Test against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
While doing commentary, Bhogle had suggested that they needed to do a proper post-mortem after the pink ball Test, asking the players whether there were problems regarding visibility. Responding to this, Manjrekar responded with “only you need to ask, Harsha, not us, who have played a fair bit of the game.”
“I want to get very serious about this,” he said. “See, one thing I pride myself on is being professional and with that particular comment, it was me losing control and I was unprofessional, I was wrong and something that I regret… it was wrong of me. That is what really bothers me that I let my emotions get the better of me. Mostly being unprofessional and to an extent indecent as well.”
“It was wrong and I say that because it was unprofessional and the first thing that I did was I had apologised to the producer that I was working for that it was wrong,” he added.
