Abbas Ali Baig
Why shouldn’t there be any action against Denness? When a player errs, there are so many after him. So why shouldn’t the same yardstick be applied to umpires and referees? I wouldn’t go to the extent of calling it racism. But it’s definitely a bias against players from the subcontinent. Pollock was let off despite testing his lungpower and almost forcing the umpire to give a decision in his favour.
Bishen S. Bedi
There’s one good thing that’s come out of all this. At least now the Indian team doesn’t look anymore like a bunch of no-hopers. They’ve rallied around all those named. From whatever little I’ve seen on TV, the South Africans were not reading hymns. But they didn’t go overboard. Pollock tested his lungpower but he did it on agenuine appeal.
Ajit Wadekar
I think the icc wants to prove that it is doing something, faced as it is with criticism for being ineffective. And Indians are soft targets because traditionally we don’t react. So the ICC has always managed to get away with imposing penalties on Indians, in the process showing the rest of the world that they are actually doing some work.
S.K. Bansal
Denness did not follow any of the rules before meting out the punishments to the Indiancricketers. He never consulted the umpires on the field and took arbitrary decisions. The right to appeal lies with the fielding side and that’s what the Indians were doing. There was nothing wrong in that.
K. Srikkanth
The Indian players did not swear, did not abuse anyone. They too are human beings, they need to react, show some emotions in the process. As long as it doesn’t offend anyone, it should be fine. Unfortunately, the match referee thought otherwise. What happened was biased and absolutely unfair. I don’t want to speculate on whether it was racist or anything else.
Navjot S. Sidhu
What Sachin was doing, I have done a million times. Ball tampering is when you scratch it or raise the seam. Sachin was doing neither. It’s like acquitting the vultures and condemning the doves. The spirit of the game has been tampered with by Mike Denness. He is an executioner. But who is going to punish him?
