India’s former mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton who has been in charge of IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals made some shocking revelations about the 2013 spot fixing scandal in his recently launched book ‘The Barefoot Coach’.
Upton said he saw signs of a dubious nexus between the former India pacer and two other Rajasthan Royals players — Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan — who were arrested for spot-fixing during the 2013 season. Sreesanth had abused the then RR skipper Rahul Dravid after being dropped out of the playing XI in a game against Mumbai Indians.
Upton said that 24 hours before he was arrested on May 16, 2013 Sreesanth had been sacked and sent home for poor behaviour.
Upton wrote, “The reason for Sreesanth’s repeated poor behaviour, which amongst other things included blurting out in front of the team that Rahul Dravid (captain) and I (Upton) could go and f…k ourselves in response for dropping him, now made sense.”
Sreesanth has denied all the accusations Upton made on him and said he is a ‘liar’. He added that Upton is doing all this just for fame.
“He is such a big liar… I never said anything like that,” S Sreesanth told the Indian Express. “It’s really sad. Feeling really bad for Mr. Paddy Upton. If he wants this 30-second fame, he can have it. All I can say is I’ve always respected every individual I’ve played with and always will. I had high regards for him till date. It’s really disappointing to see this. I really hope he starts to at least respect himself and not sell himself to make other people happy.”
The BCCI had banned Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan for lifetime in 2015. However, in 2019 the Supreme Court lifted the lifetime ban on Sreesanth.