All-rounder Yusuf Pathan on Wednesday denied criticising national selectors for omitting his brother Irfan from India’s Champions Trophy squad, dubbing the reports as “totally baseless and wrong”.

“I did not make any comment on selection matter or about Irfan’s exclusion and the remarks attributed to me are totally baseless and wrong,” the towering right-hander said in a statement.

Is Irfan Pathan a victim of regionalism?

Yusuf was earlier quoted in the media as saying that Irfan merited a place in the side purely on the basis of his performance and that biased selectors had kept the left-arm seamer out of the squad for reasons other than cricket.

Yusuf insisted he did not say anything of that sort in Tuesday’s programme in Ahmedabad after the all-rounder, along with his Rajasthan Royals teammate Ravindra Jadeja, joined Reliance Industries Ltd whom they will represent in the BCCI corporate cricket tournament.

“At the event, among other things I was asked to comment on the omission of Irfan Pathan from the Champions Trophy probables to which I clearly said ‘It is not for me to comment on selection matters’ and got up from the press conference.

“A couple of people came after me and kept repeating similar question and trying to put words in my mouth. Even there I said ‘I have nothing to say’ and made an exit from the venue,” Yusuf said.

More than 100 jobs at the British Council in the UK are to be outsourced to India, as part of a massive cost-cutting drive to save taxpayers’ money.

Final decisions about which jobs will go to India will be taken in the next few weeks but they are expected to include 58 finance posts, up to 40 IT posts and 15 posts for a new centre of excellence.

About half the jobs to be cut will be in education and teaching. Some of these areas will have to be contracted out to voluntary groups or local authorities.

For the first time the civil service body has directly exported jobs to save costs. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which funds the British Council, is exploring similar options.

A spokesman said that administrative jobs could be carried out by local staff in regional hubs overseas.

The council, which promotes British culture and language abroad, said that 500 of its 1,300 British workers would have to go in the next 18 months to save 45 million pounds. More than a fifth of these posts are to be filled in India and the body plans to bring some of the Indian recruits over to “shadow” finance staff in Manchester.