Chandimal Appears To Be a Victim of Paranoia and Bias So What Else Is New ICC?
Posted on June 21st, 2018
Top Spin By Suni
June 22nd 2018
Is the ICC overplaying their hand over the Dinesh Chandimal issue?
Along with administrators Hathurusingha and Gurusinha, he has been charged with a level 3 offence which the ICC and its cohorts have been notorious for doing quite regularly in recent times as they appear trigger happy and jumpy on related issues ever since Australia’s cricketers were found guilty of ball tampering.
Could they be looking for more apparently susceptible victims to justify their actions and could they have picked the wrong target this time ( just as they did in the case of Kusal Janith Perera which almost ruind his career) as they seem to have done here based on the presented evidence, the credibilities of the match referee Srinath of India with obvious conflicts of interests and inconsistencies based on some of his past actions as well as those of the umpires involved whose decision making in certain recent matches could easily be deemed questionable?
It seems very easy for the ICC to lay down the law based on their perceptions albeit there being a darker and hidden side to some of their own policies and decision making apparatus which at the best of times appear dubious,biased , at times baseless and probably needs looking into and re-vamping towards posterity as there are many decent and credible followers who disagree with how the ICC executes some of its actions where players of smaller nations are often targetted for all the wrong reasons.
In the case of Australia, the guilty parties were caught red handed and admitted shamefacedly to their offences but in Chandimal’s case he has remonstrated angrily and quite justifiably. Realistically there there could be no analogies drawn to the Australian case where the comparisons of sandpaper(Steve Smith, Warner and co.) deliberately used as opposed to a toffee wrapper found on Chandimal one would presume innocently as well as harmlessly where the ICC appear to be making an issue out of. It truly seems a feeble excuse – one which the adjudicators were in all probabilities waiting for, to make a scapegoat of someone!!
Veritably, the issues involving the Sri Lankans particularly Chandimal ( a player of integrity and unblemished character) which goes for the whole team and its adjudicators need to be quashed and an apology in order rather than implement a set of falsely purported offences which in all probabilities would never hold water in any legal perspective as there was simply no culpable offence on the part of Chandimal and the Sri Lankans whatsoever.
It has all the makings of being a misguided conclusion which could eventually turn out to be a comedy of errors .
Related exerpt from the News media.
Sri Lanka skipper Dinesh Chandimal, on Thursday (June 21), appealed against the charges laid against him on grounds of ball-tampering after the match referee Javagal Srinath arrived at the conclusion having studied the video evidence from the third day’s action of the second Test against the Windies, the ICC confirmed.
An interesting legal battle is now on the cards between the lawyers of Sri Lanka Cricket and International Cricket Council after the former has decided to contest the ICC sanctions. Following Srinath’s decision of handing the Sri Lankan skipper a one-match ban along with a fine of 100 per cent of his match fees, the ICC announced that CEO David Richardson had charged Chandimal, head coach Chandika Hathurusingha and team manager Asanka Gurusinha of a more serious Level 3 offence which relates to conduct that is contrary to the spirit of the game.
The Sri Lankans were charged for holding up play for two hours on the morning of day three after the umpires accused the Sri Lankan captain of ball tampering.
SLC officials were in discussion with the Sri Lankan side that is currently in Barbados and late Wednesday night made a decision to contest the charge. SLC sources had mentioned on Wednesday that the board will inform the decision to the ICC the following morning.
That means the ICC will have to appoint a Judicial Commissioner to hear the case and the trio of Chandimal, Hathurusingha and Gurusinha will not be suspended from the third and final day-night Test in Barbados.
A level three offence carries a penalty of a ban of two to four Test matches and if found guilty, the top brass of the Sri Lankan side will miss most part of the home series against South Africa next month.
Sri Lanka are believed to be contesting the charge on the grounds of inconsistency of application of the rule and not following proper procedure. The charge against Chandimal was laid on the morning of day three and Sri Lankan believe that he should have been charged on day two. However, officials have 18 hours to charge a player. But Sri Lankan argue that the umpires didn’t have any issues with the ball when they took it to their custody at stumps on day two.
Sri Lanka claim that they were informed about the charge ten minutes before play on day three although both teams had arrived at the venue more than two hours prior to the start of day’s play.
Match Referee Srinath also has been accused of inconsistency. The tourists claim that when they were reluctant to take the field, Srinath had assured there would be no imposition of the five penalty runs sanction or a change of change the ball. However, when they took the field, the umpires did completely the opposite holding up play again.
Sri Lanka are believed to have accused umpire Ian Gould of getting carried away after the ball tampering fiasco in South Africa early this year that saw three Australian players getting suspended.
Sri Lankan also question whether the five run penalty rule was applied on all occasions in recent times when teams were accused of ball-tampering.
June 21st, 2018 at 3:53 pm
Also significant to note that it has always been the home side who provide TV evidence and they don’t produce with their own ball shining techniques. Such evidence are biased and ICC should produce their own recordings than those obtained by home country using their own crew.
Nevertheless, I don’t know why Chandimal said he can’t remember what he put in the mouth. Indian match referee has easy trump cards because of this statement. Chandimal would have given the types of sweets he put in the mouth. He weakened his case by saying so.
June 21st, 2018 at 6:28 pm
From Cricinfo
QUOTE
Chandimal’s appeal is likely to hinge on what he put in his mouth. One of the probable contentions is that Chandimal had a number of things in his pocket during the day, including cough lozenges (which you cannot apply to the ball) but also almonds, and he does not remember which of those things he put into his mouth in this particular clip.
This, the Sri Lankan team feels, is different from the ICC’s framing of Chandimal’s defence. Upon suspending Chandimal for a Test, Srinath had said in the ICC release: “Dinesh admitted to putting something in his mouth but couldn’t remember what it was, which I found unconvincing as a defence and the fact remains it was an artificial substance.”
Chandimal’s defence is likely to contend that there was no way the ICC could possibly know that it was a substance capable of altering the condition of the ball, because the video evidence does not make it clear what the substance was.
The argument, essentially, is that the ICC does not have sufficient evidence to find Chandimal guilty of tampering. This has been one of Sri Lanka’s assertions from the beginning.
UNQUOTE
Chandimal has not said that “I put something in my mouth but I couldn’t remember what it was ”
This is a fabricate lie by a Indian Colonial Parasite ?
June 21st, 2018 at 9:32 pm
May be Chandimal is planning a political career after he finishes his cricketing career. Amnesia is one of the requirements to be a politician in Sri Lanka now. How many things does Chandimal keep in his pocket when he is on the field? If he said it was chewing gun may be he could have got away. Can the ICC analyse the substance that was applied on the ball?
June 22nd, 2018 at 9:49 am
Sarath W
What Chandimal plans after his cricketing career is his business.It is unfair to target him the way you have.
Stand up for the ethical aspect of this issue and justice not speculative yapping!Is it not a fact that the ICC tends to be partisan in how it makes decisions based on myopic vision and bias?
June 22nd, 2018 at 3:37 pm
As you can see in my previous comments, I myself was mislead by the ICC statement which is a total distortion of what Chandimal’s answer was. He has indeed given a truthful and innocent answer and the evil match referee with greediness to get marks distorted his evidence.
This referee shall be removed from ICC panel. Sunil Mahattaya, pleaae write another one on this.
June 22nd, 2018 at 6:19 pm
Sunil, It was not speculative yapping. If Chandimal can not remember what he put in his mouth, then he has a real problem. If he had no defence, he should not have the manager and the coach involved and brought the game into disrepute. This whole episode has made the Sri Lankan team and the management look like fools.
June 25th, 2018 at 8:41 am
Very simply the assertion that the ICC has distorted facts holds true to all this.Indeed it’s the ICC that has attempted to make the Sri Lanka Cricketers appear like fools and novices.It appears to be a ploy to counter the Australian fiasco.The ICC should re-vamp policies about appointing match referees and check their credentials closely for conflicts of interest. In Srinath’s case it appears to be crying out for a closer look both at the referee and the decision.Curiously Srinath and some others seem to be regular implants in the match referee box and need to be removed for their ‘wishy washy’ decisions making in the best interests of the Gentleman’s Game monitored by a few myopic goons put there by the ICC.