Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

Both the rival captains Sourav Ganguly and Shane Warne has been fined today for an amount of 10 per cent of their match fee and reprimanded for their conduct by the Indian Premier League.

The two veteran cricketers engaged in a public remarks following the IPL match between their respecctive sides, the IPL was quick to punish the two captains and said it would not tolerate any on-field or off-field indiscipline.

While Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Ganguly was penalised for forcing the on-field umpire to refer a contentious catch to the third umpire, Rajasthan Royals’ captain Warne was punished for lambasting Ganguly’s conduct in the post-match press conference. The IPL also rightly decided to suspend the on-field umpire in question, G Pratap Kumar, for a match.

“It has been informed by Farokh Engineer, the Referee in the IPL game between the Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur on May 1, that he has issued an official reprimand to Sourav Ganguly, and fined him 10 per cent of his match-fee for showing dissent on the field,” IPL commissioner and chairman Lalit Modi said in a statement today.

“The Referee has also suspended Pratap Kumar for one match, on the grounds that there was no reason for him to accede to Ganguly’s request to consult the TV umpire while Warne crossed the line by commenting on Ganguly’s conduct after the match.” Modi said.

“Shane Warne, captain of the Rajasthan Royals in the ongoing DLF Indian Premier League, has been reprimanded and fined 10 per cent of his match-fee by Match Referee Farokh Engineer,” Modi explained.

“Warne was found guilty of violating Section 1.7 of the ICC’s Code of Conduct, which deals with public criticism of, or inappropriate comment on a match-related incident or official. It constitutes a Level I offense,” he added.

Warne had criticised Ganguly for going against the spirit of the game by not accepting fielder Graeme Smith’s word on the controversial catch.

He also blamed Ganguly of resorting to time-wasting tactics during the match. Though the Royals decided against lodging a formal complaint against the former India skipper, the IPL decided to take action as “Ganguly’s act of prevailing upon the on-field umpire to refer a decision to the TV umpire constitutes a Level I offence as per the ICCs Code of Conduct.”

We think that this will set an example for all players to behave properly in the true spirit of Cricket only and refrain from slamming each other.

Just after the Rajasthan Royals match ended with Knight Riders, Shane Warne could not hold back his displeasure with Ganguly and his behavior on field. He said “Ganguly was not playing in the spirit of the game.”

“He took time to come out to bat in the middle. He made us wait in both innings and was running on his own time.”

Warne also criticized Ganguly’s decision to call for the third umpire after Graeme Smith claimed a catch in the deep that was later negated by the third umpire.

“He can’t ask for a third umpire after he’s given out. He should have accepted that catch was proper”.

“I told him, the game is not about you and your opinion. I was extremely disappointed with Ganguly,” Warne concluded.

Meanwhile, Kolkata Knight Riders CEO Joy Bhattacharya defended Ganguly’s actions. ” Ganguly had every right to question the umpire’s decision,” he said. “As far as we’re concerned it’s a non-incident,” he further stated.

Sourav Ganguly hit back at Warne’s comments after the latter accused him of not playing in the right spirit.

“Warne should look at what he’s done all his life.”

“To claim a dropped catch is not in the spirit of the game. When the umpires aren’t saying anything, why is Warne?” he said.

“I’ve better things to do than sorting this issue with Warne.”

Smith lashes out

South African captain Graeme Smith also lashed out at Ganguly. “Sourav was a touch out of line in his behaviour,” he thought. “TV replays showed it was a clean catch, I felt it was clean. I know the rules, I know what is allowed and what is not” - he added.

We hope that this argument dies down as fast as it occurred and the spirit of Cricket wins in the end.

Shane Warne leads his team again to another victory defeating the Knight Riders by a decent margin of 45 Runs. Shane won the toss and decided to bat first in the scorching heat of 40 deg probably with a thought that the visitors will be worn out after fielding below the sun.

Rajasthan Royals just seem to be getting better with every match. For the Knight Riders, Ganguly and Hussey put on a good partnership but they couldn’t score at a brisk pace. It seemed he was mostly there to protect his wicket more than scoring.

While Shane Warne is coming into every match with specific strategies and with team fully charged up, Knight Riders seemed to be disoriented and a team lacking proper strategy. Its only a hope that each team realizes the true spirit of 20Twenty Cricket and work out specific plans before a match.

After Ganguly and Hussey the team fell like a heap of cards with a total of 151. Swapnil Asnodkar picked up the Man of the Match Award with 60 runs off 34 balls in which he scored 10 boundaries and one over boundary.

Rajasthan Royals: 196/7 (20.0 Ovs)
Kolkata Knight Riders: 151-all out (19.1 Ovs)

This match was a tale of two teams who are as evenly matched as a snake and mongoose. Both of them have had similar starts to the league with Kolkata Knight Riders making a mockery of Bangalore Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings blasting their way to the highest total in the league so far against Kings XI Punjab in their opening matches. As if to reconfirm their status as the twin brothers, Knight Riders scraped through in a dramatic match against Deccan Chargers on a dicey Kolkata pitch while Super Kings survived a late onslaught by an inspired Harbhajan and his comrades. This match has everything that a hindi film would promise and don’t be very surprised if the ticket sales for the recently released blockbuster “Tashan” don’t take off during the weekend. You would very well know the reason.

Everyone expected to see the titanic battle of the two captains. Saurav Ganguly, regarded as one of the finest captains of India and Dhoni, the heartbeat of the young brigade will start their game of chess the moment they step onto the field, trying to outwit each other at every stage of the game. Will they do something as tactical and shrewd as Warne did the other night by introducing spin in the third over, only remains to be seen.

But from the beginning it was a complete one sided affair. The contest which was indicted as the clash of the titans has fallen flat on its face. Kolkata won the toss for the first time and elected to bat. The Chennai seamers did a great job initially and kept picking up wickets at regular intervals to disallow Kolkata from getting to a big score. However a score close to 150 was always tricky but Hayden and Parthiv ensured that there are no hiccups at all and with Dhoni promoting himself, the match got over in a hurry. Chennai super Kings won the match by 9 Wkts with a smooth game and no major hiccups, One can only expect the return match at Kolkata to be much more exciting.Jacob Oram was the man of the match with 3 Wkts in 4 overs for 32 runs.

Score;

Kolktata Knight Riders: 147 for 9 in 20 overs
Chennai Super Kings: 152 for 1 in 17 overs.

Man of the Match - Jacob Oram.

BCCI - Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Niranjan Shah confirmed today that the erratic behaviour of the pitch at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday during the Indian Premier League match between the Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Charges will be probed.

Shah said the IPL’s technical committee and the Cricket Association of Bengal would probe all aspects of the pitch to ensure that a better wicket is prepared for the upcoming matches.

The Twenty20 encounter saw 15 wickets falling in just 37.4 overs against a score of 222 runs, with both captains Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman getting hurt from unpredictable bounces by the pace bowlers.

Laxman, who scored a memorable 281 against Australia in a Test match in 2001, expressed his shock.”This sort of wicket would not at all help Twenty20 or for that matter cricket in general,” Laxman said.

Laxman hurt his fingers from a sharp rising delivery from pacer Ishant Sharma that kicked off awkwardly. Even deliveries from Andrew Symonds [Images] saw ball rising above the batsman’s head and Deccan wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist [Images] behind the wicket had a tough time keeping against them.

The central pitch was used for the first match which saw Kolkata edge home by five wickets in a thrilling finish to register their second consecutive victory.

Kolkata will host its second match on April 29 between Kolkata and Mumbai Indians.

All the players, including Kolkata captain Ganguly was critical of the erratic behaviour of the pitch.

Not only the pitch but also the sudden cut off of one of the lights was equally embarrassing - we think that the officer responsible should be taken to proper task for being such a spoil sport.