Shane Warne, captain, coach and mentor at Rajasthan Royals (RR), landed himself in trouble by getting into a verbal confrontation with Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) secretary Sanjay Dixit on the issue of pitch allotment for the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium.
Warne was unhappy with the pitch being changed for Rajasthan Royals' last two home matches against Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore. RR lost the last three matches at Jaipur and Warne just went aggressive in his criticism of the move to change the pitch.
Dixit ‘abused'
On Wednesday, following a humiliating defeat at the hands of RCB, Warne reportedly abused Dixit in public for not allowing RR the home advantage of choosing the playing surface. Dixit lost no time in making an official complaint to the Board of Control for Cricket in India President, Shashank Manohar, Secretary N. Srinivasan and IPL Chairman Chirayu Amin.
Dixit took strong objection to Warne's behaviour. According to Dixit, the RR captain had been “pressurising” him with repeated text messages to shift the match against RCB to a different pitch.
Dixit claimed to have brought to Warne's notice that the teams had “no say” in pitch preparation and its allotment. “The prerogative of preparing and deciding the pitch for the match lies with the staging association. The IPL rules are clear on this and I had made this known to Warne,” said the RCA secretary.
The incident happened at the conclusion of the presentation ceremony. Warne, according to RCA media manager Rakesh Jain, confronted Dixit and used objectionable language. “He was warned but he continued with his abusive language,” said Jain.
The RR captain was blaming the local officials for conspiring against the team and not allowing it to have the pitch of its choice. Warne had even tweeted his displeasure hours before the match.
RR owners apologise
The RR team management and the owners, including Shilpa Shetty, offered profuse apologies but Dixit stood firm and dashed off his complaint to the Board. He even forwarded the text messages that Warne had sent. Dixit was supported by venue director Narendra Joshi, who also took up the matter with the Board and the IPL management committee.
