Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.
Credit: PTI photo
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has found himself in hot soup with the BJP after he called the BCCI—whose Secretary is senior BJP leader and Home Minister Amit Shah's son Jay—'arrogant' for sending a squad devoid of top players for the ongoing T20I series in Zimbabwe.
In a post on X, the Thiruvananthapuram MP remarked, "So even while the echoes of the wild celebrations at Mumbai for India’s #T20WorldCup win have not died down, we have been beaten by minnows Zimbabwe today in Harare. It’s just what @BCCI deserved for taking things for granted. Whether on June 4 or on July 6, arrogance has been brought down a notch. Well played, Zimbabwe!"
Soon after this, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla slammed the Congress leader in a post where he said, "Our main team did not play today - we lost…But look at Congress celebrating India’s defeat in their hatred for BJP & Modi. Disgusting."
Later, Tharoor explained his stance, saying, "If a team is called INDIA it needs to be worthy of the label. This was at best "India A". If SKY, Pant, Hardik, Kuldeep, Siraj, Bumrah and Arshdeep, plus Sanju, Jaiswal, Chahal, Dube, were ALL unavailable this week, the tour should have been postponed. At least half of them should have been there to justify the International status given to these matches. This is what I mean by @BCCI taking success arrogantly for granted. My disappointment is not because we lost but because we did not even show that much of self-respect."
A new-look India team suffered a 13-run loss to an inexperienced yet spirited Zimbabwe side in an upset of massive proportion.
India, who were recently crowned champions in the T20 World Cup albeit with a different set of players, were expected to blow away the Zimbabwean challenge when they restricted the home side to 115 for nine.
But Zimbabwe wrote their own script, reducing India to 28 for four in the Powerplay and then eventually bowling them out for 102 in 19.5 overs.
It was India's first loss in T20Is in 2024 and first against Zimbabwe in eight years.
With PTI inputs