Shocking! Saurashtra Cricket Association to conduct probe as players get caught carrying Liquor - Reports

The Saurashtra Cricket Association will be conducting an inquiry against their U23 cricketers for carrying liquor, as per PTI. Gujarat is a dry state and selling of liquor is not allowed. The state government permits tourists to buy liquor from some of their selected outlets. The SCA decided to take the step after liquor bottles were recovered from their U23 cricketers.

The huge sizeable amount of liquor bottles from the Saurashtra U23 cricketers were recovered in the plane’s cargo area, on which the cricketers were on board. The incident occurred on January 25, when the cricketers were returning from Chandigarh to Rajkot after their win over Chandigarh in the CK Nayudu Trophy. The liquor was seized by the airport authorities of the Chandigarh International Airport.

Saurashtra Cricket Association to conduct an inquiry on U23 cricketers

Saurashtra Cricket Association said in a statement, “There has been an alleged incident at Chandigarh that was brought to notice of Saurashtra Cricket Association. The alleged incident is unfortunate and intolerable. Ethics/Disciplinary Committee & Apex Council of Saurashtra Cricket Association to make in-depth examine of the incident and shall take proper disciplinary action.”

It has been reported that a total of 27 bottles of liquor and 2 cases of beer were found from the five U23 Saurashtra cricketers. However, the police didn’t register an FIR into the matter.

Saurashtra has produced many great cricketers in the current time such as Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Jaydev Unadkat. Saurashtra are the current champions of the Ranji Trophy and defeated Bengal in the final of the previous edition of the biggest Indian first-class tournament.

However, Saurashtra have not been able to continue their consistent performances this season. Saurashtra are currently placed in the fifth spot of Elite Group A and have been able to win 1 out of four games, whereas two have ended up in a draw.

In their recent match against Services, Saurashtra played a draw in Delhi. Batting first Services declared their first innings at 536/7. Shubham Rohilla was the top run scorer for the Services and played an innings of 153 runs from 223 runs. Lovekesh Bansal and Arjun Sharma also slammed centuries and played innings of 161 and 101* runs.

Saurashtra also put up a decent batting performance and achieved a total of 462 runs in their first innings. Vishvaraj Jadeja and Cheteshwar Pujara played innings of 88 and 91 runs respectively whereas Arpit Vasavada also played a knock of 71 runs from 186 balls.

Cheteshwar Pujara is currently the second-highest run scorer of the tournament and has scored 535 runs from three innings. This includes a double hundred against Jharkhand, which was 17th overall for Pujara in his first-class career. Narayan Jagadeesan from Tamil Nadu tops the list of the leading run scorers and has scored 600 runs in four matches. His highest score has been 321.

Chirag Jani has picked up the most wickets for Saurashtra in the present edition of the Ranji Trophy and has picked up 14 wickets from 4 games. Gaurav Yadav from Pondicherry is the leading wicket-taker in the Ranji Trophy 2024 so far and has picked 31 wickets from four games.