{"id":374453,"date":"2025-08-26T08:14:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T08:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374453\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T08:14:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T08:14:21","slug":"another-exit-from-team-india-bcci-parts-ways-with-this-long-serving-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374453\/","title":{"rendered":"Another exit from Team India: BCCI parts ways with this long-serving member"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Board of Control for Cricket in India (<a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/bcci\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BCCI<\/a>) has ended its association with <a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/rajeev-kumar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rajeev Kumar<\/a>, the Indian team\u2019s long-serving <a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/masseur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">masseur<\/a>, bringing down the curtain on his nearly decade-long stint with the national side.<\/p>\n<p>For players and fans, Kumar was more than just part of the support staff. Known for his ever-present smile, he worked tirelessly after matches to ease players\u2019 fatigue, providing massage therapy, preparing energy drinks, protein shakes, and hydration mixes tailored to individual needs.<\/p>\n<p>Kumar, who had become a familiar presence in the <a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/indian-dressing-room\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian dressing room<\/a>, confirmed his exit through an Instagram story. He wrote: \u201cIts been a privilege and honour to serve <a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/indian-cricket-team\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian cricket team<\/a> for a decade (2016\u20132025) thankyou god for the opportunity truly grateful and looking forward.\u201d<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"rajeev kumar\" alt=\"rajeev kumar\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/et-logo.jpg\" class=\"lazy gwt-Image\" data-msid=\"123515521\" data-original=\"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/msid-123515521\/rajeev-kumar.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Source: Screen grab from Instagram story of Rajeev Kumar<\/p>\n<p>On the field, he was a regular at the boundary ropes, collecting stray balls to keep play moving and ensuring players stayed fresh. His close rapport with fast bowlers was well known, given the physical demands of their spells. <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ET logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/118783427.cms.png\" width=\"90%\"\/>Live EventsHis popularity extended to fans too \u2014 in 2019, Mohammed Shami shared a birthday post with Kumar and Ishant Sharma, while Yuzvendra Chahal once described him and others as the \u201cunsung heroes\u201d who supported the cricketers behind the scenes.<br \/>Kumar\u2019s departure comes at a time when the Indian team\u2019s support staff is seeing changes, with <a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/abhishek-nayar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Abhishek Nayar<\/a>, Arun Kanade, and Soham Desai also moving out recently. Fielding coach <a ref=\"dofollow\" data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/topic\/t-dilip\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">T. Dilip<\/a> had a brief exit before being reinstated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has ended its association with Rajeev Kumar, the Indian&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[122419,18666,1406,130936,32441,130937,130935,130934,79,130938,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-374453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-abhishek-nayar","9":"tag-bcci","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-cricket-massage-therapy","12":"tag-indian-cricket-team","13":"tag-indian-dressing-room","14":"tag-masseur","15":"tag-rajeev-kumar","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-t-dilip","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115094071926714314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}