00:00 Hi Rahul sir, are you hurt about the classified information leaked by Iman Sahal last night?
00:06 As he said that you have asked him to rethink about his cricketing career and you have told
00:11 him that he will not be considered for Team India.
00:14 What do you have to say about this?
00:16 Thanks for congratulating us on just winning a T20 series.
00:20 No, I am actually not hurt at all because I have a deep respect for Riddhiman Saha and his achievements and his contribution to Indian cricket.
00:35 My conversation with him actually came from that place, for my respect for him.
00:42 I just felt and I think he deserved honesty and he deserved clarity and I didn't want him to hear about it from the media.
00:55 And these are conversations that I constantly have with players and I am not hurt about it at all because I don't expect
01:06 players to always like the messages or to agree with everything that I have to say about them.
01:16 That's not how it works. When you have difficult conversations with people and sometimes you have to have them with players.
01:23 You don't expect them to always agree with you or like with you but that doesn't mean you brush it under the carpet
01:29 and don't have the conversations. I truly believe in having those conversations.
01:36 Before every playing XI is picked, even now either me or Rohit will speak to the guys who are not playing
01:41 and be open to answer questions as to why they are not playing and what are the reasons of a particular XI that we might play.
01:48 So I am not hurt by it. I think it's natural for players at times to get upset and to feel hurt.
01:57 But I just feel that because of the respect that I have for him, he deserved clarity and honesty.
02:04 And that's all I was just trying to convey. We have only 3 test matches this year.
02:12 And with Rishabh Pant having established himself as our number one choice wicket keeper,
02:18 the idea was to say that we were looking to groom a younger wicket keeper with only 3 test matches this year.
02:26 And that was it. This doesn't change my feelings or my respect for Hrithi and his contribution.
02:36 And like I said, the easiest thing for me is to not have these conversations or not speak to players about it.
02:45 That's not who I am and that's not what I am going to do. And I don't expect them to like it or like me
02:51 but at some stage I hope they will at least respect the fact that I was able to front up and have these conversations with them.
02:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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