Durham To Have Private Chat With Head Coach James Franklin After Allegations From Yuzvendra Chahal

English cricket county Durham has said that they will be having a conversation with their head coach New Zealand’s James Franklin after Yuzvendra Chahal said that he was physically harassed by Franklin and Andrew Symonds during their time in the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Australia’s Andrew Symonds, James Franklin, and Yuzvendra Chahal were all part of the Mumbai Indians (MI) camp in IPL 2011. The leg-spinner recently recalled the incident during the Champions League in 2011 when Franklin and Andrew Symonds had tied Chahal’s hands and legs in a room and had totally forgotten about it in their drunken state.

“It happened in 2011, when Mumbai Indians won the Champions League. We were in Chennai. He [Symonds] had had a lot of ‘fruit juice’. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he and James Franklin got together and tied my hands and legs and said, ‘no, you’ve to open [the knots]’.

They were so lost that they taped my mouth and forgot about me completely during the party. Then they all left and, in the morning, someone came to clean [the room] and saw me, and called a few others and untied me. They asked me since when I had been there, and I said, ‘I’ve been here the whole night’. So that became a funny story,” Chahal had revealed on a RCB podcast.

When asked if Symonds and Franklin had apologized after that, Chahal said, “No, they said when you drink so much juice you don’t remember stuff in the morning.”

The Club Will Speak Privately With All Parties Involved To Determine The Facts: Durham To Have A Talk With James Franklin

Meanwhile, county side Durham has said they will speak to head coach James Franklin “privately” over the physical harassment allegations made by Yuzvendra Chahal. They further said that they will collect more facts on it as well.

Franklin was appointed Durham coach in early 2019 and he played 31 Tests, 110 ODIs, and 38 T20Is for New Zealand in international cricket. Apart from that, Franklin had played 20 games for the Mumbai Indians in the 2011 and 2012 editions.

“We are aware of recent news reports surrounding an incident in 2011 which name a member of our staff. As with any matters involving employees, the club will speak privately with all parties involved to determine the facts,” Durham said in a statement sent to ESPNCricinfo.

Though this was revealed by Chahal in an RCB podcast a few months back, the matter has evolved again due to the leg spinner’s recent comments affirming that he had been hung out of a 15th-floor hotel balcony by a drunk team-mate during his stint with Mumbai Indians.

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