Top players skip camp

The Delhi Ranji camp started at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground here on Wednesday, even as  the cricket fraternity awaited the meeting between star player Virender Sehwag and the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) president Arun Jaitley to sort out the differences between players and officials.

Several players have backed Sehwag’s claims of nepotism in the state body after the dashing India opener threatened to move to Haryana, but the absence of some players from the first day of the camp was not because of any boycott as some sections of the media projected.

 A pre-season camp is generally slow to take off, and the DDCA officials said it was nothing different this time. “Players who have not turned up had informed us well in advance. A few are out of station while others have some commercial commitments,” said chief selector Chetan Chauhan regarding the absence of some prominent players.

Sehwag is currently in Bangalore, recuperating from a shoulder injury that has kept him out of the Indian team till the Champions Trophy to be held in South Africa in September. Among the other absentees, Ishant Sharma is out of station on a commercial shoot, Rajat Bhatia is still to return after playing league cricket in England while leg-spinner Chetanya Nanda is at the NCA.

“The whole thing has been blown up. Once Sehwag meets Jaitley, everything will be back to normal. Sometimes someone says something and everything gets blown out of proportion,” said a top DDCA official. Sports secretary Sunil Dev said all the players are busy in schedules and that is the reason none of them turned up today.