Graeme Smith joins Sourav Ganguly on the sidelines

Because of his side's slow over rate in the thriller at Barbados, Graeme Smith has been banned for four one-dayers.

The nature of the ban is more or less similar to that imposed on Sourav Ganguly following India's poor over rate at Ahmedabad. Interestingly enough, both these games were thrillers.

Smith has been given a four match ban because this was his team's second incident of bowling slowly in the last year. He had also apparently been warned and advised on various other occasions in the past year about South Africa's slow over rate. I cant see too much of a difference between what Ganguly and Smith have been accused of breaching. Both their penalties have been upgraded from Level 3 to Level 2 since this was the second instance in twelve months. The only difference in Ganguly's case is that his bowlers bowled slowly in the immediate previous game while Smith's bowled slowly last September. So why does Smith get four matches while Ganguly got six matches?

South Africa's bowlers, Langeveldt and Ntini had fines imposed on them for excessive appealing. I find it odd that while Langeveldt has been fined for not appealing, the charge is for excessive appealing. So how exactly does not appealing count as being excessive?!

The ICC's website lists out over rate related decisions by year.

Labels: over rates