Gautam Gambhir banned for one Test

India opener Gautam Gambhir was banned for one Test today for not conducting play “within the spirit of the game as well as within the laws of cricket”.

Gambhir was docked for a verbal altercation with Australian bowler Shane Watson, and using his elbow to give him a knock on the ribs while attempting a second run.Gambhir, who pleaded guilty to the Level 2 offence, will have to sit out of the final Test against Australia in Nagpur from Thursday.


Match-referee Chris Broad informed him of the decision before play commenced this morning. Gambhir will miss the fourth Test in Nagpur starting November 6 though he has a day’s time to decide on appealing against the decision.


India will sorely miss the in-form Gambhir, who has not only given good start in the Test series but has made big scores and spent a lot of time at the middle, wearing down the Aussie bowlers, frustrating them and laying a strong foundation for massive Indian totals.


Gambhir has already scored 206 in India’s score of 613 for 7 declared coming after his century in the second Test.“The decision to find Gambhir guilty of a Level 2 offence is indicative of the fact that any degree of physical contact is unacceptable,” Broad said.“Had Gambhir been charged with and found guilty of a charge under 2.4 (for deliberate or inappropriate physical contact), due to his previous offence, I would have been obliged to impose a minimum penalty of a two-Test match ban.

In the view of the umpires, the facts of this case - the lightness of the physical conduct and the element of provocation - would not justify such a penalty.”Broad also weighed in factors like Gambhir’s track record.


He was fined for running into Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi. Gambhir, in his defence of the incident with Watson, said on Wednesday, “It wasn’t deliberate, it just happened… I didn’t need to get into this argument with Shane Watson because he had no option of getting me out.


There wasn’t a need for me to stick my elbow out, it just happened.”Watson was fined 10 per cent of his match fee for “verbally engaging with Gambhir in a manner that was not in keeping with the spirit of cricket”.


He pleaded not guilty to the Level 1 charge and has no right to appeal.Gambhir was fined 65 per cent of his match fee for the incident with Afridi in 2007 in a ODI at Kanpur, and he was found guilty of a Level 2 charge of inappropriate and deliberate physical contact between players as well as a Level 1 charge of not conducting himself within the spirit of the game.