Former Indian World Cup winner Sunil Gavaskar believes stricter punishment must be given to Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir for their off-field antics after the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s win over Lucknow Super Giants on Monday.
The Visuals after the game were not well received by many cricket experts, as they felt that this would set a bad example for the youngsters in the squad, and videos of their clash went viral on social media as the fans were divided by their opinions in the act of 2011 World Cup winners.
BCCI on Tuesday, charged Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir 100% of their match fee and Naveen ul Haq with 50% of their match fee for their actions in the field. Speaking on Star Sports, Cricketer turned commentator Sunil Gavaskar believes that strict actions must be taken by BCCI to stop these kinds of acts in forthcoming matches.
“Well, I saw the visuals only a while ago, I did not see the match live yesterday. These things never look good. What is a 100 percent match fee? If it is Kohli, who is on maybe ₹17 crores for RCB, for a possible 16 matches, including the semi-finals, and finals. So you are talking about a crore of rupees. Is he going to be fined ₹1 crore and more? Well, that’s a very stiff fine,” Sunil Gavaskar said.
“I don’t know what Gambhir’s situation is. They should ensure that this is not repeated. You are hoping this is not repeated because it’s such a stiff fine and punishment. You want to play it hard, play it competitively. During the time that we played, there was a bit of banter, but there was none of this aggression that we see now,” he added.
Indian batting maestro Virat Kohli was seen animated throughout the match, having words with Lucknow Super Giants batters Amit Mishra and Naveen ul Haq in the final overs of the game, which was not well received by Lucknow Super Giants mentor Gautam Gambhir, who gave it back Kohli after the game.
Make Sure You Do Something That Ensures That These Things Don’t Happen – Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar feels it important to make sure that BCCI steps in to stop this kind of acts, citing the example of Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth, and wants the players involved in hard words of exchange to be banned for the next couple of games so that these things don’t happen in the future.
“So, my point is to do something which will ensure these things don’t happen again. If it has to you know, like it happened with Harbhajan and Sreesanth 10 years ago, that you have to ask them to maybe step aside for a couple of matches. Make sure you do something that ensures that these things don’t happen and also something that will hurt the team. That’s a stiff one,” Sunil Gavaskar added.
Lucknow Super Giants will look to come over this incident when they take on four-time champions Chennai Super Kings on May 3 in Ekana Stadium.