India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Friday fined 75 per cent of his match fees for allegedly shoving young Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman during the first ODI of the three-match cricket series
Mirpur: India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Friday fined 75 per cent of his match fees for allegedly shoving young Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman during the first ODI of the three-match cricket series, here.
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Dhoni was charged with Level 2 offence under ICC Code of Conduct yesterday for elbowing the debutant pacer while chasing an imposing 308-run target set by Bangladesh at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium.
The incident happened during India's chase when Mustafizur came in Dhoni's way while completing his follow through as India captain was running for a single.
Replays showed Dhoni shoved him while trying to reach the crease.
Match referee Andy Pycroft summoned Team India manager Biswarup Dey last night to intimate him about the hearing.
Explaining his decision, Mr Pycroft said: “In the hearing, Dhoni defended the charge on the basis that the bowler was on the wrong line and realising that he couldn’t avoid the collision, he used his hand and arm to push him away as he went through to ‘minimise the impact’.
“However, my assessment was that Dhoni deliberately pushed and shouldered Mustafizur, which was inappropriate. Even if there was a narrow gap between the runner (Suresh Raina) and the bowler, an experienced Dhoni should have tried to avoid the collision as cricket is a non-contact sport and the players are expected to avoid physical contact at all times. On this basis, I fined Dhoni 75 per cent of his match fee”.
According to reliable sources, a collective decision was taken by the team management that the skipper would not plead guilty in this case as he never tried to hurt the bowler intentionally.
Accordingly the administrative manager filled the form where India decided to contest the charge.
In the morning at the team hotel today, on field umpires Rod Tucker and Enamul Haque Moni were called by Pycroft after which the trio of Dhoni, Dey and Team India Director Ravi Shastri were summoned.
It was learnt that the team's defence was that Dhoni never raised his elbow and the officials said that he just wanted to complete the run.
Their bone of contention was according to replay there was no gap between shoulder and armpit which justifies that he did not try to elbow the bowler.
However, it was learnt that any sort of body contact can't be termed as Level 1 offence and match referee Pycroft had to press Level 2 charges which is fine between 50 to 100 hundred per cent match fees or two match ban.
Once the Indian trio completed their hearing, Mustafizur was called along with team manager Khaled Mahmud Sujon.
Interestingly, Mustafizur had told Bengali daily Prathom Aalo that "I made a mistake coming in the way". Mustafizur had earlier repeated the offence when Rohit Sharma was batting and hence was docked 50 per cent of his match fees.
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