Former ICC match referee Chris Broad recently made a shocking revelation, claiming that he was once asked to “be lenient" on an Indian team that had fallen behind on over-rate during an international fixture.
Broad said he obliged, but the Indian team repeated the same offence in the following game despite his warnings.
“India were three, four overs down at the end of a game so it constituted a fine. I got a phone call saying, ‘be lenient, find some time because it’s India’. And it’s like, right, OK. So we had to find some time, brought it down below the threshold,” Broad said while speaking to The Telegraph.
"The very next game, exactly the same thing happened. He [Sourav Ganguly] didn’t listen to any of the hurry-ups, and so I phoned and said, ‘What do you want me to do now?’ and I was told, ‘Just do him. ’ So there were politics involved, right from the start. A lot of the guys now are either politically more savvy or just keeping the head below the parapet. I don’t know," he added.
Now, former India head coach Greg Chappell has supported Chris Broad's allegations of being pressurised to be "lenient" towards Sourav Ganguly for slow over-rate offences.
In an interaction with Sydney Morning Herald, Chappell went on to claim that former BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya made an offer to him to have Ganguly's suspension reduced so that he could participate in a tour to Sri Lanka. However, the legendary Australian cricketer rejected the offer.
“Dalmiya offered to have his suspension reduced so that he could go to Sri Lanka at the start of my tenure,” Chappell said.
“I said no, I don’t want to rort the system, he has to do his time. Dalmiya seemed OK for him to miss," he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that Ganguly was first fined by Chris Broad after the third India versus Pakistan ODI in Jamshedpur in April 2005. He was then handed a ban for six matches for repeating the offence in the same series. The suspension was then reduced to four games after a formal appeal was lodged.
Ganguly was then suspended for two more games, this time by former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd. This was his second over-rate offence within 12 months.
