Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir have been fined 100 percent of their match fees for a level 2 breach of the IPL Code of Conduct A day after players Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir were fined 100 per cent of their match fees for a level 2 breach of the IPL Code of Conduct for their mid-field bust-up, cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar questioned whether imposing hefty fines was enough to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
On Monday during the match Royal Challengers Bangalore and Lucknow Super Giants, there was a mild altercation between Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq at the end of the match. The umpires intervened along with Amit Mishra. Later, the battle escalated to a post-match bust-up between Kohli and Gambhir.
Videos of the infamous altercation went viral on social media. The players extended the war to Instagram. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) later imposed hefty fines for violating Article 2.21 of the IPL Code, which covers: (a) public acts of misconduct; (b) unruly public behaviour; and (c) inappropriate comments which are detrimental to the interests of the game.
Afghanistan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq was fined 50 percent of his match fee for a level 1 breach of the same Article.
"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 per cent match fee? What exactly is a 100 per cent match fee? If it is Kohli, who is on maybe Rs 17 crore for RCB, which means Rs 17 crore 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 Rs 1 crore and more? Well, that's a very, very stiff fine," Gavaskar said.
He further added: “I don't know what Gambhir's situation is. They should ensure that this is not repeated. You are hoping that this is not repeated because it's such a stiff fine, such a stiff 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. A lot of it has got to do with the fact that everything is on TV too. Because of the fact that you are on TV, you tend to do maybe just that little bit extra."
Giving the example of Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth’s episode almost 10 years ago, the legendary cricketer said suspending the players for a couple of games can be a good way to handle the situation. Harbhajan Singh slapped Sreesanth in the first season of the IPL after he as a captain of Mumbai Indians lost a game against Kings XI Punjab.
“Something needs to be done to make sure, these things don’t happen again. If it has to you know, like it happened with Harbhajan and Sreesanth 10 years ago, 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,” he added.