Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Gautam Gambhir penalized by ICC

Here is one more example of an Indian cricketer being penalized by ICC whereas cricketers from other teams primarily Aus, Eng and SA go scot free for similar kind of behavior on the field. There is a long history of ICC and BCCI playing games of oneupmanship and ICC has thrown rule book very frequently on India cricketers to settle their score and also to make people believe that India board has lots of money but not a good cricket team even after having deep pockets. This makes people think that BCCI is just busy in minting money with no regards to Cricket development. Whenever Indian team starts doing well against any of top nations, we see India cricketers getting penalized for minor infringements affecting their morale and performance. Sample this:
1. India beats SA in a test match for first time in SA in 2006-07 series. Sreesanth is fined.
2. India beats Eng in test series to go 1-0 up. Sreesanth is fined.
3. India beats Aus in T20 world cup Semi-final. Sreesanth is fined.
Incidentally, Sreesanth was a stand out performer in all these matches, and in match against SA, Andre Nel openly bad-mouthed him but still match refree chose to ignore that.
In the current series, Zaheer khan has been bowling very well and he has been fined already. Gautam Gambhir is the leading scorer and he has been banned for the crucial final test.
In the past decade, we have seen many cricketers who have good records against Aus being targeted by match officials on flimsy reasons and troubled with disciplinary actions - Muralidharan, Shoaib Akhtar, Harbhajan, Sourav Ganguly to name a few.
Aus cricketers openly call themselves aggressive but when it comes to taking action, ICC only targets Asian cricketers for aggressive behavior as if Aussies are saints on the field.
ICC mostly turns blind eye towards transgression by other cricketers esp Aus. During 2007-08 Aus-Ind series, Ponting was penalized for slow over rate in third test (Perth). Link: http://content-www.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/story/332294.html
For some reason, this does not figure in the list of breaches that are listed on ICC website - http://icc-cricket.yahoo.com/about-icc/breaches-and-penalties-2008.html
In the current series, during 2nd test, Aus bowled only 85 overs during the day + additional half hour. This is 5 overs less than overs specified (90) and Aus took 30 min extra too. So why was no action taken against Ponting now. Since the same breach happened again within a year, if ICC match refree had taken cognisance of that, then it would have resulted in a much higher penalty this time - may be a test match ban on Ponting but match refree chose to keep his eyes shut on this.
ICC needs to mend its ways pretty quickly. By denying Gautam Gambhir his rights of natural justice, ICC has further lost its credibility in the eyes of Indian cricket fans and it comes across as subservient to Aus cricket board once again. It was in best interest of Aus to get Gambir out of last test and they have ensured it through back doors that he does not play in the final test.

No comments: