M A I N   N E W S

4 Indians on ICC blacklist

London, March 2
This is one statistics Indian cricketers would like to forget soon. As many as four of them feature in the ICC blacklist for violating the Code of Conduct since its introduction in April 2002, which is second behind South Africa who have the maximum players guilty at five.

West Indies can give themselves a pat on their back — not for their show with the bat and ball but for being the only team not to have a charge laid against any of their players.

Three of India’s charges were laid during the recent Australian series where captain Sourav Ganguly was fined for slow over-rate, Rahul Dravid for applying an illegal substance on the ball and Irfan Pathan for mocking a rival player.

Harbhajan Singh was fined last year for making abusive comment in a one-day match against South Africa at Dhaka.

Pakistan have only one bad boy to worry about, Shoaib Akhtar who had three charges against his name alone. The other Pakistanis to feature in the list are Rashid Latif, who was held guilty once and given a clean chit another time, and Yousuf Youhana.

World champions Australia have four incidents reported against them with vice-captain Adam Gilchrist guilty twice. The figures, released by ICC yesterday, show a reduction in violations from 52 in two years prior to introduction of the Code to 31 in 23 months afterwards.

Three of India’s charges were laid during the recent Australian series where captain Sourav Ganguly was fined for slow over-rate, Rahul Dravid for applying an illegal substance on the ball and Irfan Pathan for mocking a rival player.

Harbhajan Singh was fined last year for making abusive comment in a one-day match against South Africa at Dhaka.

Former India captain and chairman of ICC’s Cricket Committee (playing) Sunil Gavaskar, among those who had spoken out against declining behaviour, said the new code was having a positive effect.

“The code reflects the reality that players have a responsibility to not just their teams but to all those youngsters watching the game. This trend is a strong indication of the improvement that has taken place.” — PTI