 Harbhajan banned for five ODIs, warned of life ban
14th May 2008 19:02 IST
Agencies
The Board also told Sreesanth to mend his way.
"The Disciplinary committee also considered Sreesanth. He has to improve a lot and if he is does something similar in future, he will be dealt with firm hand," Board secretary Niranjan Shah said.
Shah refused to call it an exemplary punishment but made it clear that the Board would not brook any such indiscipline.
"It is sure that if any indiscipline is seen on the field the board would be very strict. It won't allow itself to be taken for granted," he asserted.
Harbhajan slapped his national teammate Sreesanth at the conclusion of King's XI Punjab's IPL match against Mumbai Indians in Mohali on April 25.
Harbhajan, who was bought by Mukesh Ambani's franchise for a whopping Rs 3.40 crore during the landmark auction, was subsequently banned from the remainder of the IPL, apart from losing nearly Rs 3 crore of match fee, for breaching the ICC's Level 4.2 Code of Conduct.
As per the ICC Code of Conduct, a level 4 offence results in a maximum punishment of a life ban or a minimum of 5 Tests or 10 ODI ban. But in this case, the Board went by its own regulation and invoked Rule 3.2.1 of the BCCI regulations.
Sreesanth, who was at the receiving end of Harbhajan's wrath, was also warned against aggressive on-field behaviour and told that his conduct would be taken seriously.
Mumbai Indians manager Lalchand Rajput was fined 50 per cent of the match fee for not stopping the off-spinner's attack on Sreesanth playing for Kings XI Punjab.
The BCCI, under whose jurisdiction IPL is being held, decided to conduct a separate probe into the incident by appointing Nanavati who viewed a video recording of the incident, summoned the warring players to Ahmedabad and conducted the probe.
Nanavati also considered statements by IPL match referee Farokh Engineer and umpire Amish Saheba while preparing his report.
Nanavati described the slapping incident as "shocking" after viewing the video recording of the sordid episode, one of the worst-ever in the history of Indian cricket, in the BCCI office here last week. |
