I C C ..International Cricket Council….or International Cricket Cowards !?…Popularising or Polarising Cricket ?
Chris Broad,the Match Referee in the ongoing third cricket test match between India and Australia at New Delhi,has just announced a one test match Ban for Gautam Gambhir for his elbowing Shane Watson on being provoked by the latter
‘Gambhir’ in Hindi means ‘Serious’ and such physical aggression is certainly not cricket ! It’s a serious matter….Gambhir has been earlier penalised for his Spat with Pakistan’s Afridi in an ODI…Chris Broad says he could have given a two match ban but the Umpires said that he was provoked by Watson
This Means that the back to back Centurion and Double Centurion,Gambhir will miss the Final Test Match in Nagpur…was this the gameplan by the Aussies ?
My simple observation is this…While Gambhir clearly deserves this Ban for repeated offence and that too a physical one,the provoker,Shane Watson should not have got away with a mock fine of just 10% of his Match fees
Watson should have been fined his Full Match fees ! What Say, Watson ? To steal a line from Sherlock Holmes,”It’s elementary,Watson !”…You were provoking him from the first over itself…Your reaction to Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan belting you in Bangalore included some choice expletives…you got away then.
This continuing double standards by ICC makes you suspect that something is amiss in the World of Cricket…on one hand you want to popularise the Game and on the other you are polarising it !
ICC and it’s Match Referees, like Chris Broad, are clearly discriminating between players from Australia,England,New Zealand and South Africa on one hand and the players from India,Pakistan,Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on the Other when it comes to applying the ICC Code of Conduct
It’s Australia who is not playing Cricket in the spirit of the Game…even their Prime Minister had to warn their Captain,Pointing, to play the Game in the spirit of it during the acrimonius India -Australia Series in Australia,where the West Indian Umpire,Steve Bucknor repeatedly and deliberately gave blatantly wrong umpiring decisions in favour of the Australians to enable them to win the Sydney Test…a test that they were on course to otherwise end up losing
The Australians just can’t win on the field and beat the opposing team in a fair and square manner…they need to resort to hardcore sledging and provocation and psychologocal warfare…the problem is that they cannot take any !