Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar reflected on his past controversies with Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami. Since retiring, he has built a long career in broadcasting and established himself as a familiar voice in commentary. However, his outspoken style has often landed him in controversy over the years. One of Manjrekar’s most talked-about controversies came during the 2019 ODI World Cup when he described Jadeja as a “bits and pieces” cricketer. The remark did not sit well with Jadeja, who openly expressed his displeasure.
“I am not a big fan of bits and pieces players, which Jadeja is at this point in his career in 50-over cricket. In Test matches, he is a pure bowler. But in 50-over cricket, I would rather have a batsman and a spinner,” Manjrekar said on Times of India.
Jadeja reacted on social media and slammed the former cricketer.
“Still, I have played twice the number of matches you have played and I’m still playing. Learn to respect ppl who have achieved.i have heard enough of your verbal diarrhoea. @sanjaymanjrekar,” he added.
Ahead of IPL 2025, he raised doubts whether Shami get big attraction in the mega IPL auction due to his recent injury crisis.
“There will definitely be interest from teams, but given Shami’s injury history—and this recent one took a significant amount of time to recover—there’s always a concern about a potential breakdown during the season. If a franchise invests heavily and then loses him mid-season, their options become limited. This concern might lead to a drop in his price tag,” Manjrekar said ahead of the auction.
However, Shami, who was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad for a whopping INR 10 crore, lashed out at Manjrekar in an Instagram story.
“Baba ki jay hoooooo. Thodasa gyan apne future k lie bhi bacha loo kaam ayega Sanjay G? Kisi ko future janna ho to sir se mile [Jai to Baba. You should save some knowledge for your future too, it will be useful Sanjay G? If anyone wants to know about the future, meet sir],” he wrote on Instagram story.
“Jadeja’s controversy was more misunderstanding”
Meanwhile, Manjrekar reflected on the controversies surrounding his remarks on Jadeja and Shami, stressing they were largely misunderstood. He clarified that Jadeja misinterpreted the “bits and pieces” term, while Shami’s reaction was unclear to him.
“ I think Jadeja was more misunderstanding, bits and pieces he thought [it] was like a cringe cricketer. I thought he misunderstood that term, and Shami have got no idea. Somebody told me that he reacted, but I have no idea what the reaction was, and that is how I keep it simple, as I said… Yeah, earlier, let’s be honest, I used to get affected by it and try and sort of give my point of view and just try to make things better, but it’s like a Tsunami that comes in and there’s no way you can stop it,” Manjrekar said on Stalin Mathias’ YouTube channel.
However, the former cricketer asserted that he is unaffected by such ‘tsunamis’.
“The best thing about these Tsunamis is that these kind of controversies or reactions, I mean, 48 hours later, they found something else to get upset about,” he added.
