In one of the shocking allegations in IPL history, the former Kings XI Punjab captain Glenn Maxwell alleged that Virender Sehwag interfered in team selection during the 2014 season. Maxwell highlighted how the former Indian star 'lost a fan in Maxwell' in his new book on Friday.
Maxwell, who played and captained KXIP during his first stint in 2014-2017, revealed that Sehwag used to pick the playing XIs even after retiring from IPL in 2015. He added that Sehwag's interference affected his captaincy and the team's performance on and off the field.
"I was going to be captain, which Sehwag told me when we met during the Test series," Glenn Maxwell wrote in his book. "We had played together, but now he had retired into what was described at the time as a "mentor" role. We discussed how the team would operate and I thought we were all on the same page.
"How wrong I was. Our coach, J Arunkumar, was coming in for his first season, and it became clear to him that he was coach in name only, with Sehwag pulling the strings. Winning papers over cracks, and as we got up in the first two games, the confusion behind the scenes was ignored. Privately, though, I had coaches and players coming to me asking what on earth was going on, and I found it difficult to give them a straight answer.
"When it came to selection, I thought it might be a good idea to bring the coaches into a WhatsApp group to make our decisions. Everyone agreed to this and shared their teams, with the exception of Sehwag. At the end of the process, he made it clear that he would pick the starting XI, end of story. We were losing on and off the field by now, with Sehwag on more than one occasion making decisions that didn't necessarily make sense."
The Australian all-rounder also accused Sehwag of undermining his captaincy during the 2017 IPL season. He revealed that the Indian legend removed him from the team's WhatsApp group and texted him, 'Don't need fan like you.'
"I volunteered to do press that night, but Sehwag said he would instead," Maxwell added. "Upon getting onto the team bus, I found I'd been deleted from the main WhatsApp group. What was going on here? By the time we reached the hotel my phone was blowing up, with Sehwag having unloaded on me as a "big disappointment", blaming me for not taking responsibility as captain, and all the rest. It was unpleasant, especially when I thought we had parted on good terms.
"I texted him to say how much it hurt to read those comments and added that he had lost a fan in me for the way he had conducted himself. Sehwag's response was simple: "Don't need fan like you." We never spoke again. I knew my time was at an end and told the owners as much: if Sehwag was going to stick around, they were making a mistake and not to bother with me. He only lasted one more season."
