Former England bowler Stuart Broad said that Mohammed Siraj getting fined for his celebration of Ben Duckett’s wickets in the 4th Day of the Lord’s Test was ridiculous. The Indian bowler was fined 15 per cent of his match fee for his aggressive celebrations after dismissing the England opener.
“Siraj got 15% fined for his altercation with Duckett which I thought was ridiculous… He didn’t do anything particularly wrong apart from celebrating a huge wicket that got his team back into the game,” Broad said on For The Love Of Cricket podcast with Jos Buttler.
Broad had tweeted on Sunday about the issue as well, saying, “Find this ridiculous. Siraj 15% for aggressive celebration. Gill swears live on tv & carries on and what? It’s either both or neither. Players aren’t and shouldn’t be robots but consistency is key.”
The Gill incident that Broad was referring to here was the confrontation that the Indian skipper had with Zak Crawley in the last over of Day 3.
The fiery exchange in the final over had a lot of dramatic visuals, with India’s captain Gill in the thick of it. Annoyed by Crawley’s time-wasting tactics that ensured India just got in one over as opposed to two that they would have hoped, Gill ran from the slips, hurled verbal abuses at Crawley and Ben Duckett, pointed fingers, and mock-clapped at Crawley. The England openers also stood their ground, and gave it all back.
The tension then boiled over to the next day with the Siraj-Duckett incident which led to the India bowler’s fine. Siraj proceeded to roar right in Duckett’s face, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and veins popping. There was even a light shoulder contact. Duckett didn’t seem to really look at the bowler at any point while Siraj did the opposite for him. The Indian pacer even got a little talking-to from the umpires after the whole exercise.
An ICC statement on the incident noted that the Indian pacer “was guilty of breaching Article 2.5 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to using language, actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batter upon his/her dismissal during an International Match.”
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The ICC statement added: “After the dismissal, Siraj celebrated close to the batter in his follow-through and made contact as Duckett began his walk back to the Lord’s long room.”
