Sachin cannot cheat: former cricket board chief

A former chief of the Indian cricket board has compared Sachin Tendulkar with Mahatma Gandhi and said he could have never tampered with the ball during the second Test against South Africa.

N.K.P. Salve, a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), gave Tendulkar a clean chit and said the BCCI was right in calling for the removal of match referee Mike Denness, who ruled Tendulkar guilty.

"Sachin cannot cheat; he is to cricket what (Mahatma) Gandhiji was to politics," Salve told IANS, while terming the actions of Denness, an International Cricket Council (ICC)-appointee, as "clear discriminations."

Batting maestro Tendulkar was among six Indians penalized by Denness for various misdemeanours. Four players were punished for excessive appealing and showing dissent at the umpires' decisions while Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was hauled up for not being able to control his boys. The incidents took place in the drawn second Test at Port Elizabeth last week.

The punishments led to a great furore in India, with many former cricketers and politicians suggesting the team be called back, while others called Denness' decisions racial.

"Sachin's was a minor violation of the rules," said Salve, who was BCCI president from 1982 to 1985. "The penalty given to him was perversity in judgement; it was highly improper. Sachin explained to Denness and he accepted his version. But he still penalized him for ball tampering."

Claiming that Tendulkar was simply cleaning the mud on the ball with his nails, Salve said, to label the master batsman a cheat is a "serious offence."

Sympathizing with Indian batsman Virender Sehwag, who was handed a one Test ban for over appealing, Salve said that making an appeal is a player's right. "It is a natural instinct." Virender Sehwag was prolonging his appeal because the umpire hadn't still made up his mind on the decision, he said. "Denness was biased."

Salve supported the stand taken by BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya. "I entirely endorse the BCCI's views and their demands," said Salve.

Dalmiya wanted the ICC to either keep the penalties in abeyance until a neutral panel reviewed them or remove Denness. ICC declined both proposals and when India and South Africa went ahead with the third Test without Denness, ICC declared the match unofficial.

"The issue must now be taken to its logical end - ICC must accept the BCCI's demands and must not repeat the mistake," Salve said. "Let there be a referee who is fair, as justice has to be tempered with compassion."

Salve witnessed one of cricket's biggest controversies--allowing some English players, who had played or coached in the then apartheid-practising South Africa, to participate in the 1987 World Cup held jointly in India and Pakistan.

The Indian government had banned those players as part of its policy to discourage racism, but Salve, the president of the World Cup organising committee, eventually managed to get visas issued to all the English players.

India's tour of South Africa : Complete coverage

--Indo-Asian News Service

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