All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and five other Indian cricketers have tendered an unconditional apology to the BCCI for an alleged pub brawl in St Lucia, blaming fans for the incident and pleading innocence.
In their letters, both Jadeja and Rohit Sharma said the Indian cricketers were abused by disappointed fans in the pub but vowed there would not be a repeat of such incidents again.
“I beg to inform you that I had gone to the restaurant (pub) for dinner along with other Indian team members. Some other guests, which I presume were of Indian origin from U.S.A., had also come to the restaurant and on seeing us, they started abusing us,” Jadeja wrote in the letter he sent to BCCI Secretary N. Srinivasan on May 21.
“This may be because they were unhappy with our poor performance. We requested them not to abuse us but they did not stop in spite of our repeated requests.
“No way was I involved in any ugly brawl and I went to the pub only to have dinner with my teammates,” said Jadeja.
Apart from Jadeja and Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Piyush Chawla were also served a show cause notice for the incident that took place soon after India’s exit from the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies.
Rohit said he was having dinner in a corner and was not even aware of the incident till his attention was drawn to it.
Jadeja pleaded innocence but still tendered an unconditional apology.
“If the Board still thinks that I have brought disrespect to the game of cricket or our board and our country, I once again sincerely tender my unconditional apology and assure you that I will take care that in future, no way my name will be involved in any such incident,” wrote the Saurashtra player.
