Engineered out?

dcsiva — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:28:00 GMT

Farookh Engineer is possibly in trouble too. First the players, then the umpires, and now the match referees? Ottayan reports on the details:

Unfortunately, he seems to have landed himself in trouble for suggesting that the BCCI needed to be lenient on Harbhajan Singh and for making comments on S.Sreesanth.

Reports suggest that his comments are unwelcome and Lalit Modi is making threatening noises that his comments plus his attire, he was seen wearing the RC team’s uniform, will be investigated.

Saloni Rana has the inside track on the second big controversy. First, Warne was pressured to not file an official complaint, and second, bizarrely:

But Lalit Modi while speaking the media in Jaipur stated that match referee has slapped a fine of 10% match fee to both the parties concerned in the matter and umpire has been handed one match ban.

When DreamCricket got in touch with the match referee he was surprised to hear about Mr. Modi’s comments on Warne being fined and added that; ‘I believe Shane Warne has not done anything wrong and I have just fined Ganguly and handed a match ban to the umpire’.

Meanwhile, the BCCI wants to set up counselling for Indian cricket players:

A top BCCI official told HT that a 24-hour counselling hotline, on the lines of professional cricketers in England, was not out of the question, but it was something they would have to think about carefully, keeping cultural differences in mind. “We recognise the need to educate our cricketers in aspects of life other than cricket,” BCCI Chief Administrative Officer Prof Ratnakar Shetty told HT.

“Punishment is not a solution in the long-run, education and sensitive counseling is,” he said. “We need them to develop holistically, help them grow as people, have normal inter-personal relationships, cope with the demands of being in the public eye and media scrutiny from a young age, and deal with the huge money they earn from the ages of 19-20.”

Cover Points : Lalit Modi

Engineered out?