In the last BBL season for Hobart Hurricanes, Nikhil Chaudhary scored 154 runs in six innings, and picked up five wickets.
An Indian origin player, Nikhil Chaudhary, who plies his trade in Australia and more famously was a part of the BBL, has been found not guilty of sexual assault, and will return to play for the Hobart Hurricanes. The case is from 2021, where he was allegedly accused of raping a 20-year-old woman in a car in Townsville.
Keeping Hobart Hurricanes in Dark
But there is a twist in the tale, as Cricket Tasmania claims that it was not informed about the charge or the court action, as per a report in ESPNCricinfo. In fact, just months before the case on Nikhil surfaced, the Hobart Hurricanes had extended his contract to Feb 2027.
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Cricket Tasmania’s high performance general manager Salliann Beams said that Nikhil might still play for the Hurricanes this year. “[There are] some legalities through that process,” Beams said on Tuesday. “It’s not so much the incident because we know that nothing happened … legally not guilty and everything.
Nikhil Chaudhary to Play in BBL 2024-25
“It’s just the disclosure of information. We want to know where we sit on that because we were completely in the dark.” Having said that, Beams expressed disappointment that Nikhil didn’t inform Cricket Tasmania about the court proceedings. “You have to deal with the organisation’s point of view and the impact that it could potentially have on that,” she said.
“Because you don’t really want to associate yourself with … that type of investigation. But at the same time, you can understand from the players’ point of view is that, you know, they’ve done nothing wrong and it’s a scary place. [You’re] legally advised not to say anything, so you’re always balancing different sides of the story.”
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