New Delhi, Aug. 20: For the second day in a row, as many as nine Delhi Ranji players stayed away from the conditioning camp at the Ferozeshah Kotla in New Delhi. The likes of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Ishant Sharma are away fulfilling sponsor commitments, and on Thursday, left-arm paceman Ashish Nehra joined the list as he too gave the camp a bye. Others missing from the camp include Rajat Bhatia, Chetanya Nanda and Sunny Sehrawat.

The Delhi and Districts Cricket Association, however, dismissed claims that the players staying away from the camp was a show of protest.

Skipper Sehwag had earlier made claims of ‘nepotism and corruption’ by the DDCA and threatened to shift his allegiance to Haryana if things did not change.

"All the claims of protest are just rubbish. Players like Gambhir and Nehra have informed us the reasons for skipping the camp," DDCA general secretary Sneh Bansal told this paper on Thursday.

"Nehra was here for the opening day but he had some prior commitments and expressed his inability to attend the camp today. We have always been accommodating about these matters," he added.

Bansal said that the DDCA was prepared to hear out all of Sehwag’s grievances and sort out the matter amicably. "Taking radical steps like dissolving the sports committee is no solution to this problem. Delhi has the largest league in the entire country — 1,100 matches a year — and their presence is essential to organise the matches efficiently.

"But we’ll definitely like to curtail their interference in selection matters. Whatever solutions Sehwag has for improvement will be duly considered by the executive committee," he said.

The general secretary also said that he would meet Sehwag as soon as he was back in Delhi to bring a swift end to this problem.