Boria Majumdar says he will serve defamation notice to Wriddhiman Saha

Talk show host Boria Majumdar has said he will serve a legal notice for defamation on Indian cricketer Wriddhiman Saha in connection with recent allegations made by the wicketkeeper batter of receiving 'threats' from a journalist for not agreeing to give an interview.

In a video he put out on social media, Majumdar said that the screenshots of the WhatsApp chat that Saha had put out was a doctored version of an exchange between the two.

"There are always two sides to a story. @Wriddhipops has doctored, tampered screenshots of my WhatsApp chats which have damaged my reputation and credibility. I have requested the @BCCI for a fair hearing. My lawyers are serving @Wriddhipops a defamation notice. Let truth prevail," Majumdar said in a tweet along with the video late Sunday night.

The development comes after Saha met the BCCI's three-member committee which comprises the board's vice-president Rajiv Shukla, treasurer Arun Dhumal and apex council member Prabhtej Bhatia and shared all the necessary details about the incident.

Also read: Wriddhiman Saha 'tells all' to BCCI probe committee

"I have told the committee everything I know. All the details I have shared with them. I can't tell you much right now. BCCI has asked me not to talk anything outside... about the meeting as they will answer all your queries," Saha told reporters in the national capital on Sunday.

In February, Saha, the 37-year-old centrally-contracted cricketer, who had been dropped from the Indian team for the Test series against Sri Lanka, had taken to Twitter to publish a screenshot of messages that a "respected" journalist had sent him on WhatsApp.

The screenshot in question had the sender requesting Saha "to do an interview with me", to which Saha did not respond. The messages eventually took a more aggressive tone: "You did not call. Never again will I interview you. I don't take insults kindly. And I will remember this. This wasn't something you should have done."

The issue escalated after former players like Ravi Shastri, Parthiv Patel, Harbhajan Singh, and Virender Sehwag, among others, joined in the criticism of the said journalist. The Indian cricket board subsequently decided to get to the bottom of the issue and constituted a three-member committee to probe the matter.

Notably, the cricketer till date hasn't publicly named the person who allegedly 'threatened him' for the interview.

With Rishabh Pant establishing himself as India's first-choice wicketkeeper, and KS Bharat rising through the ranks to become his new deputy, Saha, who has played 40 Tests, has already been told by head coach Rahul Dravid that the team would be moving on from him and that he could take a decision on his career.

Not long after that, Saha was demoted from Group B (Rs 3 crore salary) to Group C (Rs 1 crore) of the BCCI central contracts list. He went unsold on Day One of the mega auction before getting picked by Gujarat Titans for Rs 1.9 crore on the second and final day.