Cricket: Tendulkar sentence outrages Indians

PORT ELIZABETH - India's top cricket official wants match referee Mike Denness replaced, as the furore over the suspended sentence on star Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar grew last night.

Jagmohan Dalmiya, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said bans that Denness imposed on six Indian players after the second test against South Africa in Port Elizabeth should be suspended.

"Either Denness should be changed and, if this is not possible, at least decisions made by him should be kept in abeyance," said Dalmiya.

He said the Indian board had lodged a protest with the International Cricket Council after Tendulkar was given a one-test suspended sentence and fined 75 per cent of his match fee for tampering with the ball.

A string of former players in India also backed Tendulkar.

They argued that television pictures used to condemn him were inconclusive and that the match umpires had not complained about the state of the ball during play.

Former test batsman Sanjay Manjrekar said: "Knowing Tendulkar as I do, while he was doing what he was doing, there was no effort to hide.

"I saw the television footage and he was only cleaning the seam. It did not seem any deliberate violation of the law."

The row overshadowed Denness' other decisions against the Indian team, who drew the test against the South Africans but trail 1-0 in the three-match series.

Batsman Virender Sehwag was barred from the third and final test and fined 75 per cent of his match fee for "showing dissent at an umpire's decision and attempting to intimidate the umpire by charging".

Captain Sourav Ganguly was given a suspended ban, for one test and two one-day internationals, for breaching the ICC code of conduct and bringing the game into disrepute.

Spinner Harbhajan Singh and opening batsmen Shiv Sunder Das and Deep Dasgupta were fined 75 per cent of their match fees and given suspended one-match bans for the same offence as Sehwag.

Denness had summoned Tendulkar to a hearing after television pictures appeared to show him interfering with the seam of the ball with his fingernail.

The Indian argument is that Tendulkar cannot have doctored the ball, whatever television pictures suggest, since the umpires make regular checks of the ball.

Former opener Chetan Chauhan said: "Against a player with an unblemished record like Tendulkar, if you make a decision you have to think five times."

- AGENCIES