Media manager RN Baba denies rift within Indian cricket team

Duncan Fletcher

Indian cricket team’s media manager RN Baba has denied reports of attempts to sideline head coach Duncan Fletcher from the team set-up. There were rumours that a meeting of the team's support staff was held by Ravi Shastri at the team hotel Langham, deliberately ignoring Fletcher.

"I can confirm that no such meeting was held. There is absolutely no truth that Duncan was not kept in the loop about a meeting of the support staff. I can only term this as a figment of imagination," Baba said.

IBNlive quotes a senior BCCI official as saying,” Do you people seriously think that Fletcher needs to be sidelined with such childish tricks.”

“Fletcher has a contract till the end of the World Cup, which is only a month and half away. We don't think he will seek an extension. So if a man is leaving after the World Cup, do you need to do something like this," he added.

Following India’s disastrous Test series loss in England last year, the BCCI appointed Ravi Shastri as the team Director for the ODI and T20 leg of the tour and also replaced bowling coach Joe Dawes and fielding coach Trevor Penney with Bharat Arun and R Sridhar. Sanjay Bangar was appointed as the assistant coach.

MS Dhoni’s men, then, went on to win the five-match ODI series 3-1, which prompted the board to extend their contracts until the 2015 World Cup.