By IANS
Sydney : Former India captain Sourav Ganguly is said to have so far paid around $50,000 for breach of the official code of conduct during his cricket career, an Australian newspaper claimed Saturday.
The Sunday Telegraph, on its website, claimed that in a 15-month period in 2004-05, Ganguly committed five breaches of the International Cricket Council (ICC) code while the Indian team as a unit has been the worst offender of the current nine Test-plying teams.
“Former captain Sourav Ganguly is the game’s undisputed problem child, being hauled over the coals by cricket’s governing body a record 12 times in his international career,” wrote the paper.
“Overall, Indian players have been charged for 43 infringements since 1997, for offences including intimidating umpires, abusing rival players, ball tampering, time wasting and widespread dissent.”
It must be noted here that Indians have quite often ended on the wrong of the law because, as Ganguly and other players have said over the years, that ICC referees from other countries have unfairly targeted Indians regularly.
Another reason could be the language barrier due to which they could not defend themselves in English, the language used by ICC referees from England, Australia, England, South Africa and the West Indies during the hearings following complaints by umpires and at times referees.
While Indians have been penalised regularly, referees have often let foreign players go scot-free. A few years ago, former Australia batsman Michael Slater shouted at Rahul Dravid centimetres from his face with a ball in his hand after Indian umpire S. Venkatraghavan had turned down an appeal.
Slater was allowed to go scot-free after and Venkatraghavan, known for being tough, did not apparently report the incident to the referee.