It's shocking, says Dalmiya

The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Tuesday expressed shock at the harsh punishment meted out to six Indian players, including skipper Sourav Ganguly and master batsman Sachin Tendulkar, but said it would decide its next course of action after getting written details.

"It is definitely shocking. But we will decide our course of action only after getting the related papers from the team management," board president Jagmohan Dalmiya said, reacting to the developments in South Africa.

Dalmiya said he already received a verbal report on the developments from team manager M K Bhargava and also spoke to coach John Wright, skipper Ganguly, vice-captain Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar over phone on Monday night.

Six Indian cricketers -- Ganguly, Tendulkar, Virendra Sehwag, Shiv Sunder Das, Harbhajan Singh and Deep Dasgupta were handed down harsh punishments by match refree Mike Dennis of England for alleged ball tempering and excessive appealing.

Asked whether the BCCI would take up the matter with the International Cricket Council, Dalmiya said he would not like to commit anything before going through the related papers.

The former ICC president said he has already asked the team management for all papers relating to the punishment and a decision will be taken only after a detailed study of the same.

The BCCI office in Calcutta expects to receive all the related papers by Tuesday after which its stand will be taken.

Sehwag became the first player to be banned for a Test match for excessive appealing, while Tendulkar was given a suspended one-match sentence for ball tampering.

Harbhajan, Das and Deep were also punished for excessive appealing and captain Ganguly was handed down a harsher punishment of a suspended sentence for a Test match and two one-day internationals for his failure to control the players.

All players except Sehwag would also lose 75 per cent of their match fees.

Meanwhile, in Bombay, BCCI selection committee chairman Chandu Borde sought to know under which rules of the International Cricket Council was the action taken.

"While action against the Indian players are very severe, I want to know why no action was taken against South African captain Shaun Pollock (for excessive appealing," Borde said.

As a wave of anger swept through the Indian cricket fraternity over the action, particularly against Sachin Tendulkar, former India captain and team manager Ajit Wadekar said, "A boy of his calibre will never do something silly like that. Sachin has always played straight and clean."

Former Test player and board functionary Polly Umrigar said the decision is "very harsh, unjust and one-sided".

"On television, it was for everyone to see how things went by. The South African team was no exception to appealing. Even Shaun Pollock did it thrice," Umrigar said.

Asked how the board should react to the decision, Umrigar said, "It is upto the board... but something ought to be done."

Wadekar, however, regretted that the board has been generally weak in dealing with such issues.

"In the case of Sri Lankan Muthiah Muralitharan being charged with chucking, the Sri Lankan board took a tough stand, something unlikely in India," he said.

On the issue of excessive appealing, Umrigar said the ICC should come out with a 'uniform code'.

"During our days, one appeal was good enough. Now there is always a chorus. This has to go in general for the betterment of the gentleman's game called cricket," Umrigar said.

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Mail Cricket Editor