Big B And Gambhir Slam Brad Hodge’s Claim That Virat Faked His Injuries To Prepare For IPL

“You would think that your captain would get out there and get amongst the fight and get in there. You’d hope as a sportsman that he’s seriously injured. Because if you miss one game of Test match cricket and you’re fronting up the next week for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) versus whoever … you’d be pretty dirty if he didn’t front up to a Test match and try to win a valuable series against Australia.

It’s happened before. Not just Virat but there’s many players that have come up to IPL time and … look, we know it’s a cash-rich tournament, there’s some money up for grabs. There are certain players that will limp in, to IPL time, to make sure they get there and perform well.”

“That’s absolutely not valid. I feel that someone who’s playing for their country and captaining it would never want to miss a Test match and would definitely want to play for India more than any other tournament. That’s always been the case. Knowing Virat he would have never done that and these people, look if you want to be in the headline you can say anything you want and it’s just about making a headline or trying to get your name in the press by making such statements. If you don’t know the extent of the injury you should not be talking about it.”