THE INTERNATIONAL CRICKET COUNCIL, world cricket’s governing body is all set to take the Anil Kumble-led cricket committee’s recommendation of punishing players over ball tampering and personal abuse harshly than ever before, ESPNcricinfo reports.
The issue of ball tampering has gained further traction after Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal was accused of the same in the ongoing Test series against the West Indies and punished a harsh offence after pleading not guilty for the same. One of the reasons is that the ICC is yet to approve newly-modified sanctions for the offence. Under the revised rules, the ICC is expected to upgrade the ball-tampering offence from Level 2 to Level 3. This means that any player who is now just banned for one Test or 2 ODIs for such an offence, will be banned for as many as four Tests or 8 ODIs in the future for the same.
ICC CEO David Richardson, who is also a part of the cricket committee, said that it “viewed” ball tampering as “cheating” which went against the spirit of cricket. “Therefore, they (committee) were very strong that we need to increase the sanctions available for that type of conduct,” Richardson said. “So we are talking moving both ball tampering and personal abuse, foul language upto Level 3.”
“We are considering bumping it up to Level 3 and even considering the range of penalty slightly higher as well,” he signed off.
Sri Lanka’s controversy followed three months after the Australian trio of Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were banned by Cricket Australia for 9 months to 1 year following their role in the ball tampering scandal on their disastrous tour of South Africa.
