Year Ender 2022: Deepti Sharma's Non-striker Run-out to Ramiz Raja vs Najam Sethi - Controversies Which Rocked Cricketing World

Controversies in cricket are not a new thing as every year we witness several shocking things but they aren’t strong enough to stop the game of cricket. 2022 was the year of T20 cricket where two major tournaments took place – Asia Cup and T20 World Cup but despite of that, some cricket controversies grabbed the majority of the limelight. The cricketing world returned to complete normalcy after getting the better of the coronavirus pandemic which impacted sports in the past couple of years.

In 2022 several old controversies caught up fire as Cricket Australia came under the scanner after some shocking revelations from Tim Paine and David Warner. While cricketing governing bodies of India and Pakistan – BCCI and PCB saw change in leadership which also became the talk of the town.

Here are some of the biggest controversies that rocked the cricketing world in 2022.

Deepti Sharma Non-striker Run-out Spark Big Controversy

The third ODI match between India women and England women was the last match of legendary pacer Jhulan Goswami but it was a non-striker run-out executed by Deepti Sharma which grabbed all the attention. The Women in Blue were in search of the final wicket to seal the victory but Charlotte Dean and Freya Davies shared a 35-run stand for the 10th wicket then occurred the moment which made Twitter buzzing for almost a week. It was the fourth ball of the 44th over and England were 17 runs away from victory and Deepti was going to bowl against Davies but then she saw Dean out of her crease and she did the smartest thing to knock her bail off. It was given out and Deepti had all the rights to pull it off but the English cricket fraternity and media didn’t take it sportingly. They lashed out at Deepti and called the dismissal against the spirit of the game while the Indian cricket fraternity also displayed unity to give them a befitting reply on social media.

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Time Paine Exposes Cricket Australia

In 2021, Tim Paine shocked the cricketing world by putting his resignation as Australia Test captain ahead of the mega Ashes series. The wicketkeeper batter took the massive decision over the public revelation of an exchange of allegedly sexually graphic text messages with a female colleague in 2017. He took an indefinite “mental health break” from the game as he was also removed from the list of contracted players.

This year in his autobiography titled, “The Price Paid”, Paine revealed that CA abandoned him and made it look like he had sexually harassed someone.

“I was disappointed and I was tired of this. I was prepared to cop the flak for what I did, but in my mind, Cricket Australia had abandoned me and made it look like they thought I’d sexually harassed someone and so everyone else would think so too,” he wrote.

Pain also shed light on his conversations with Nick Hockley but the Cricket Australia CEO didn’t gave him straight answers and said that the cricket board let the hired PR consultant operate the matter which made him portray as the bad guy.

David Warner Slams Cricket Australia

Cricket Australia imposed a lifetime leadership ban on David Warner following his role in the 2018 ball-tampering scandal. However, this year he got a chance to apply to overturn his life ban from leadership roles in Australia’s teams but things turned ugly as eventually, Warner had to withdraw the ban review, claiming that the independent panel wants to conduct a public trial of the process that would have a negative impact on his family.

He posted a lengthy statement on social media where he lashed out at Cricket Australia and said that family is more important than cricket for him.

“Review Panel took it upon themselves to concoct an irregular procedure (overturning presumptions and previous practice) for the determination of my application and establish a novel approach that would negatively impact the health and welfare of my family and the interests of the Australian cricket team,” he wrote.

“Having had nearly a week to consider that proposal, today the Review Panel has decided to ignore the request in any meaningful way and has provided a dismissive rejection of the substantive matters. It appears that the Panel has given no more than passing consideration to issues of player welfare and the interests of Australian cricket and is instead determined to conduct a public lynching,” he added.

Sourav Ganguly Out of BCCI

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly who took over the charge of BCCI in 2019, fell out of favour this year and ended his term on a ‘disappointing’ note as Roger Binny was chosen as his successor. Ganguly was keen to continue as the BCCI president but the other board members took the tough call as there was no precedence of giving him a second term. Reportedly, Ganguly was offered the role of IPL chairman but he declined and chose to exit BCCI.

Ganguly didn’t make any ill comments about the BCCI and its members after his exit as many believed that India’s back-to-back failures in 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cup were the reasons behind his removal.

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Danushka Gunathilaka Sexual Assault Case

Sri Lanka cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka was arrested by the police in Australia during T20 World Cup after a woman charged him with a sexual assault case. The 31-year-old was arrested Sunday just hours after his country’s defeat to England as he was been charged with four counts of sexual assault. A woman filed a complaint that Gunathilaka sexually assaulted her multiple times and choked her so hard she required a brain scan to check for injury. Later, the Sri Lanka cricketer was granted bail while awaiting trial on charges.

Ramiz Raja vs PCB

The power paradigm shifted in PCB recently after Ramiz Raja was sacked as chairman and Najam Sethi once again took over the charge of the cricket board in the country. Interestingly, several former cricketers were happy with Raja’s sacking as Sethi also took a jibe at Raja after becoming PCB chairman.

Raja didn’t hold back and said that Sethi and his team have no cricketing knowledge as they don’t want the better of cricket in Pakistan.

“This Najam Sethi is tweeting 2:15am at night that Ramiz Raja has been sacked, star congratulating me. I have played Test cricket, this is my field, and it hurts to see these people from outside cricket trying to act like a Messiah. They have not come from the development or advancement of cricket. They just want to boss around and enjoy being in the limelight. These people have nothing to do with cricket and have never even picked up a bat in their lives,” Raja said.

The former Pakistan captain also said that the entire Constitution was changed to let Sethi become the PCB head.

“To bring just one person you changed the entire constitution of Pakistan Cricket Board. I have never seen this happen in the world that to adjust Najam Sethi, you had to change the constitution,” he added.

Meanwhile, PCB also threatened to take legal action against Ramiz Raja after a war of words broke out between the Board’s new management committee and the former chairman following his unceremonious exit.

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