Sanjay Manjrekar opens up on 'bits and pieces' controversy with Ravindra Jadeja

Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has finally opened up on the controversy that took place during this year’s World Cup when he called allrounder Ravindra Jadeja ‘bits and pieces’ cricketer. In the early stage of the competition, India did not include Jadeja in the playing eleven. In fact, he played his first game of the competition in India’s last league game which was against Sri Lanka.

With India registering an easy, Jadeja did not have much to do. And before he could prepare himself for the semifinal against New Zealand, Manjrekar bizarrely called him bits and pieces cricketer. Well, Jadeja did not take long to prove Manjrekar wrong as he came up with a stunning performance in the semifinal against New Zealand.

In the narrow loss, the allrounder proved his worth by impressing with the bat, ball as well as a fielder. He took an excellent catch on the line and effected the run-out of Ross Taylor with a direct throw from square leg, from where he could see just one stump. With the ball, he had conceded just 36 runs from 10 overs while dismissing Henry Nicholls.

It was followed by a stunning knock with the bat as he revived India’s hopes after walking in to bat when India were reeling at 92/6 in a chase of 240. He played a heroic knock of 77 and took India agonisingly close to a miraculous win.

Sanjay Manjrekar finally spills the beans the controversy

As 2019 is all set to end only in a few hours, Sanjay Manjrekar clarified the incident with Jadeja. The former cricketer-turned-commentator stated that the term ‘bits and pieces’ is not uncommon and also said that he never felt the need of meeting Jadeja to clarify things. He also recalled the infamous incident with Kieron Pollard in 2017 IPL when he met the West Indies star to clarify his comment.

“No, I don’t think it has happened. With Pollard, it happened because he misunderstood me. there was no misunderstanding here, I have said it exactly what Jadeja heard so there is no question of trying to….,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.

“The thing is I gave an interview to a random news channel and that line got picked up. Player was upset. Bits and pieces was something lot of people used. When I say it was a terrible year for me, I gave that comment and very next day Jadeja, in that semi-final, played an absolute blinder of an innings. The kind of innings we have never seen from him,” Manjrekar added.

'It's been the worst year for me as analyst and commentator'

A candid @sanjaymanjrekar explains why it was a terrible 2019 for him 😉 pic.twitter.com/CAt3RRzX16

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) December 30, 2019