Who slapped Ross Taylor? Ross Taylor SLAPGATE LIVE Updates: The former captain of NewZealand team has opened a PANDORA BOX by alleging ‘he was slapped by Rajasthan Royals owner’. So who actually slapped Taylor in 2011 after he failed to open his account during his stint with the franchise in 2011. Was it Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra or someone else? InsideSport reached out to Rajasthan Royals but they refused to comment on the allegations: Follow IPL 2023 LIVE Updates & Cricket News LIVE Updates with InsideSport.IN
“We don’t want to give any comment on this”, was the curt reply by member of Rajasthan Royals top management.
It’s been more than 24 hours now since the shocking allegations by Taylor has surfaced. But neither anyone from the franchise or from the BCCI has commented on the same.
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Who slapped Ross Taylor? Was it Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra or Chellaram? Rajasthan Royals mum on Taylor’s allegations: Follow Ross Taylor SLAPGATE LIVE Updates
Who are Royals’ owners? Did Raj Kundra slapped Ross Taylor? The Rajasthan Royals came to existence along with the birth of IPL. Royals won the inaugral IPL and was owned by group of consortium called Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Limited. The equity structure of holding entity always stayed hidden and was never made public.
Though the reports suggest that Tresco International Limited owned the majority shareholding of the enity. Tresco was owned by Suresh Chellaram and family and they reported owned almost 45% of the franchise. Lachlan Murdoch owned 11.7% and Emerging Media owned 32.4%. Raj Kundra owned 11.7% in the Rajasthan Royals.
Kundra was with the team till 2015. The incident reported by Taylor was during the 4th edition of IPL. Kundra along with wife Shilpa Shetty were prominent faces of RR at that point of time.
According to people involved with IPL in 2011-12 season, no owner other than Kundra and Shilpa use to travel with the team in those days.
‘Other than Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra, no other owner of RR use to travel with the team in those days. Manoj Badale was a ocassional visitor. Their could be a strong possibility that the owner Taylor is talking about could be Raj Kundra’, said the person prominently involved with IPL in its early years.
In 2015, Kundra was banned for life from cricketing activities by the Supreme Court-appointed RM Lodha Committee. The Lodha Committee also suspended Royals for two years.
In 2021, Badale became the lead owner of the Royals franchise by upping his stake to 65% after an injection of funds from global investors. Also, last June, RedBird Capital Partners, a global private investment firm that has interests in the parent company of Liverpool FC and the Boston Red Sox, bought a 15% stake in Royals.
What exactly Ross Taylor has alleged? In an excerpt from the book published on the New Zealand website stuff. co. nz, Taylor writes about his time with the Royals.
“When you fetch that sort of money (in the IPL), you’re desperately keen to prove that you’re worth it. And those paying you th at sort of money have high expectations – that’s professional sport and human nature. I’d paid my dues at RCB – if I’d had a lean trot, the management would have faith in me because of what I’d done in the past. When you go to a new team, you don’t get that backing. You never ever feel comfortable because you know that if you go two or three games without a score, you come under cold-eyed scrutiny.
“A case in point: Rajasthan played Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. The chase was 195, I was LBW for a duck and we didn’t get close. Afterwards, the team, support staff and management were in the bar on the top floor of the hotel. Liz Hurley was there with Warnie (Shane Warne). One of the Royals owners said to me, “Ross, we didn’t pay you a million dollars to get a duck” and slapped me across the face three or four times. He was laughing and they weren’t hard slaps but I’m not sure that it was entirely playacting. Under the circumstances I wasn’t going to make an issue of it, but I couldn’t imagine it happening in many professional sporting environments. ”
Taylor’s book also highlights how the cricketer, who is of part Samoan descent, silently faced locker-room racism during his long career with the New Zealand team.
It’s been more than 24 hours now since the shocking allegations by Taylor has surfaced – but neither anyone from the franchise or from the BCCI has commented on the same.
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