Bans will scare away offenders

Ashley Mallett the Australian who passed away in 2021 was not just a good offspin bowler for his country He was a prolific writer and scripted fine biographies for some of his teammates One of the last ones to come out of the printing press was a book on Neil Harvey who at 94 is now the last surviving member of Don Bradmanrsquos 1948 InvinciblesHarvey unlike his other subjects including Ian Chappell Doug Walters and Jeff Thomson was not Mallettrsquos teammate but someone whose career Mallett followed as a kid Harvey was a selector when Mallett played most of his 38 Tests mdashin the 1970sAmong the many Harvey stories Mallett packed in his 280page book there is one incident which showed what a fine sportsman the lefthanded great wasJim Laker the English offspinner went down in history as the first bowler to claim all 10 wickets in a Test innings at Old Trafford Manchester In fact he claimed nine in the previous innings of the TestThe Australians were convinced that the English authorities had doctored the Old Trafford pitch so that Laker and Tony Lock could thriveldquoWe were dudded alright connedrdquo Harvey says in the bookIrsquove also heard Harvey say that the ball he got from Laker in the first innings was comparable to the one Shane Warne bowled to bamboozle Mike Gatting at the same ground in 1993Harvey dismissed for a duck was so significant that Laker reckoned it won England the Test match In the second innings while Australia tried in vain to deny their traditional rivals an innings win Harvey says he ldquoholed out lamely to Colin Cowdrey at short mid wicketrdquo He laughed at his folly but once he reached the dressing room anger kicked in feelings that would afflict any other batsman who had just bagged a pairThe following day Laker ran through the Australians Postgame traditions were gladly maintained by the losersmdasha visit to the victorsrsquo dressing room The Australians as revealed in Mallettrsquos book on the champion batsman were not upset with the England players It was the English cricket bosses that had ordered the groundsman to prepare that pitchBoth teams enjoyed a chat with drinks and Harvey was the first to ldquothrust out his right hand Well done Jimmy Great performancerdquo It was probably not the easiest thing for Harvey to do that night As Australiarsquos premier batsman he was upset at the pair and his team were unfairly given a doctored pitch to bat onThis book arrived a few days ago and I got to the above bit on the very day Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir indulged in their street bawllike arguments after Kohlirsquos Royal Challengers Bangalore trumped the Gambhirguided Lucknow Super GiantsTheir allout scrap was not surprising Nothing should be shocking when it comes to these two hot heads What did surprise me was that they stopped short of striking each otherCricket fans are realistic enough to realise than mingling with the opposition is impossible after these highlycombative onfield IPL battles There is too much at stake to always conform to the spirit of the game To be competitive yet nice could be viewed as a weakness in the present ecosystem and we will all have to live with this After all when an individual is overcome by sheer anger nothing can stop him from going to extremes But the cricket authorities can infuse an element of fear among the players if they take such stepsFines even to the tune of 100 per cent of match fees donrsquot justify the misdeed The solution lies in making the rules more stringent and start imposing bans Kohli and Gambhir deserved to banned for at least a couple of gamesBut what do we see at 242 am on Tuesday An IPL press release about the 100 per cent fines for Kohli and Gambhir and a 50 per cent one for NaveenulHaqPlayers are bought at auctions and some of them are retained by franchises Mentors and coaches are on a contract so how in hell will we know the exact amounts of the finesAnd how about a line from the BCCI or IPL condemning such behaviourNo one expects matches of such nature to be played in a friendly environment Fullon aggression is only to be expected but players displaying such rage after a match is simply deplorable and kudos to all the former players who condemned the Lucknow incidentOne of them was Harbhajan Singh who also said that he regretted slapping S Sreesanth in the inaugural edition of the IPL in 2008 after the Mumbai Indians v Punjab game at MohaliWhether Gambhir and Kohli will regret the Monday night postmatch show they put on for spectators and viewers to remember is anyonersquos guessI always like to recall what the late Martin Crowe wrote in Cricinfo after David Warner had a go at Indiarsquos Rohit Sharma in a 201415 ODI at Melbourne ldquoI donrsquot care how good he Warner is if he continues to show all those watching that he doesnrsquot care he must be removed either by Cricket Australia or definitely by the world governing bodyrdquoSome pundits hold the view that the highly entertaining T20 format shouldnrsquot be called cricket However right or wrong that assessment is what we saw at the end of Monday night was definitely not cricketmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper