Jarman may censure Ganguly & Dahiya

KANPUR, DEC. 11. Sourav Ganguly and Vijay Dahiya will spend a sleepless night as Match Referee Mr. Barry Jarman contemplates the extent of damage caused by their onfield behaviour at the Green Park here.

The fourth one-day international of the five-match series was marred by friction between the rival players with Ganguly and Dahiya in the thick of it. It attracted the Match Referee's attention, who summoned the players and heard their version after having spoken to umpires, Messrs Devendra Sharma and C.K. Sathe.

In the Code of Conduct section dealing with the players' and officials' behaviour, Mr. Jarman found the two Indians guilty of having violated certain rules under Clause 2, 3 and 4.

Mr. Jarman took a critical view of the manner in which Ganguly and Dahiya appealed and tried to put pressure on umpire Mr. Sathe. The Zimbabweans too indulged in mild acts of indiscipline later, which seems to have been treated lightly by Mr. Jarman.

The Match Referee informed newsmen on Monday that he would certainly take action against the players and make the announcement on Tuesday. ``All I can tell you now is that they have violated the Code of Conduct under Clause 2, 3 and 4 dealing with players behaviour.''

Clause 2 deals with conduct unbecoming their status which could bring them or the game into disrepute; clause 3 states the players and officials must at all times accept the umpire's decision and not show dissent while clause 4 states a player or team official shall not verbally abuse, asssault, intimidate or attempt to assault or initimidate any umpire, spectator, referee, player or team official.

While Ganguly refused to comment on the episode, his counterpart Heath Streak said, ``we are role models and need to be careful of our behaviour.''

The will of the National selectors seemed to have prevailed in deciding the final 11 for the match.

Unhappy with Yuveraj Singh's poor form the selectors, Mr. Chandu Borde, chairman, and Madan Lal, made it clear to Ganguly that the Punjab youngster had to make way for S. Sriram. The Tamil Nadu youngster was slotted to bat at number three instead of Rahul David on the directions of the selectors.

Ganguly, who has been backing the Punjab youngster, said ``no comment'' when asked to speak on Yuveraj's exclusion. On the match he observed, ``we had messed up at Jodhpur and did not want a repeat here. The reserve swing worked well for us.''

Streak said the loss was, `disappointing' and blamed the batsmen for the debacle. ``The shot selection was poor and we failed to play the reverse swing well. Batting let us down,'' he noted and added a few of the players did not like some of the decisions.

- Our Special Correspondent

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