Gavaskar Criticized ICC Match Referees

After 2nd test match between India and Australia in Mohali, former Indian Cricketer Sunil Gavaskar had criticized ICC match referees. The issue was the punishment given to Zaheer Khan by match referee Chris Broad for miss -behaving with Australian opener Mathew Hayden. Broad had punished 80 % of his match fees to Zaheer. Sunil Gavaskar added that ICC match referees always punished Asian cricketers while other cricketers like the Australians or the Englishmen or the New Zealanders or the South Africans have never punished. He added that the ICC match referees have always been harsh on Asian cricketers and soft for others.

After 2nd test match between India and Australia in Mohali, former Indian Cricketer Sunil Gavaskar had criticized ICC match referees. The issue was the punishment given to Zaheer Khan by match referee Chris Broad for miss -behaving with Australian opener Mathew Hayden. The match referee Chris Broad stated the reason of punishment that Zaheer had said some wrong words to Mathew Hayden after dismissing him during the 2nd test match at Mohali. Gavaskar told that Broad should at least enquire in detail about what had actually happened between Zaheer and Hayden. Gavaskar added that the Asian cricketers always treated badly by ICC match referees.

Gavaskar added that whenever there is any controversy between the cricketers of Australia and cricketers from the sub continent, the ICC match referees always favored Australian cricketers. He mentioned that there are many incidents between recent Australia- India series in Australia when you could clearly see that the Australian cricketers had insulted the Indian cricketers. But at that time the ICC match referee hadn’t find anything suspicious in the behavior of the Australians! During India- Australia series there are always some controversies happened and in every case, the Indian cricketers had been punished severely by ICC match referees and any Australian cricketer had never been punished for his miss behavior.

Gavaskar stated the recent series incident. In the 2nd test at Mohali the Australians were appealing for Virender Sehwag in the second innings. The umpire had denied the appeal. But Australian skipper Ricky Ponting rushed through to the umpire from Extra Cover to create pressure on umpire. Now Gavaskar had asked that what Chris Broad was doing at that time. Gavaskar added that if an Indian skipper behaved the behavior, which Rickey Ponting had showed, then the match referee would consider it to be very serious matter and would take serious steps against him!

It is noticeable that the relations between Sunil Gavaskar and the ICC are not very good recently. Gavaskar had criticized an ICC match referee Mike Proctor during the Sydney test and mentioned it in his column. The ICC had opposed it and forced Gavaskar to choose between the chairmanship of the ICC cricket committee and his columnist job. After that Gavaskar had resigned from the ICC chairmanship.