BCCI bans Pragyan Ojha for illegal action

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has finally banned discarded India left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha from bowling in competitive matches due to suspect action. He will be heading to Chennai for taking corrective measures.

The BCCI has officially informed Ojha's home state association Hyderabad about his action needs remedial measures and accordingly he was withdrawn from team's Ranji Trophy home encounter against Services starting on Saturday.

HCA joint secretary Purushottam Agarwal admitted having received a letter from the BCCI.

"Yes, the BCCI did sent us a letter informing about their decision that Pragyan needs to undergo rehabilitation programme in regards to action correction. However they haven't intimated us about the timeframe. Pragyan is still in Hyderabad but will head for Chennai soon," Agarwal said.

Ojha's action has been under cloud for quite some time now despite being the quickest Indian bowler to reach to 100-wicket milestone. He has taken 113 wickets from 24 Test matches and 21 wickets from 18 ODIs. He also played 6 T20 Internationals in which he got 10 wickets.

Ojha has been at times criticised for wearing full sleeves while bowling in order to hide the elbow kink which is above permissible limit of 15 degrees.

Ironically, in his last Test match against West Indies in Mumbai, he got man-of-the-match award for his match-haul of 10/89.

He has been released by Mumbai Indians but to everyone surprise retained Grade B retainership status of Rs 50 lakh in recently announced annual contracts by the BCCI.