By IANS,
London : England all-rounder Stuart Broad has denied Sunil Gavaskar’s claim that he gets preferential treatment because his father is an International Cricket Council match referee.
In the first Test, at Centurion last month, Broad confronted the umpires when he was given out after a delayed decision by the South Africa players to call for the new review system. Broad however escaped punishment.
The former India captain wrote in a newspaper: “Stuart’s father Chris is one of (the) ICC’s match referees and so the umpires are reluctant to make a complaint against the youngster.”
“Remember the umpires and match referees are used to hanging out together in the evenings since they are in a foreign country and so forge a good relationship and obviously the umpires are not looking to spoil that by citing the young Broad for a violation of the code of conduct,” Gavaskar said.
The former England captains Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain have also been critical of Broad’s behaviour in South Africa.
“I get treated like everyone else,” Broad was quoted as saying in The Guardian.
“I think a lot was made of the incident at Centurion. We were told that just a few seconds would be allowed for referrals and I thought 45 or 35 was quite a long time. But it was a very relaxed conversation with me just asking whether they were sure they didn’t get a signal from the dressing room.
“There were no raised voices or swear words or anything like that but I probably should have waited for the tea interval to have that little chat rather than out on the field where everyone could see it.”
Broad admitted that he expects to be in trouble in the future.
“I am sure that when the time comes – as I’m sure it will unless I get unbelievably better – that I get in a little bit of trouble. But I am sure I will get treated the same as everybody else in the rest of the world.”