Anderson verdict sends out the wrong message: Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid

Former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid has said that leaving England fast bowler James Anderson unpunished in the pushing case, where he is alleged to have ‘pushed and abused’ Indian left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja during the first of the ongoing five-match Test series, has sent out a wrong message, indicating that the cricketers can get away with abuses.

Speaking exclusively to ESPNcricinfo, Dravid said: “The message we’ve given out at the moment, the game has given out, is that it’s okay to do this stuff (abuse), which I think is wrong. I think there needed to be some sort of action taken. Some punishments needed to be handed out. We all know from Bruce Oxenford’s report what Jimmy (Anderson) has said, the words that he’s used.

“That is on the report and no one is denying the fact that there was that kind of abuse and England is claiming that Jadeja turned and so we must bring that into the equation as well, but at the end of all of this, we have seen no punishments handed out.”

Anderson has crossed the line

The International Cricket Council Judicial Commissioner Gordon Lewis declared both not guilty of the charges laid against them in a trial held at Southampton last week. Jadeja was previously fined 50% of the match fee – for provoking the incident – by David Boon in a separate hearing; upon BCCI’s re-appeal, though, it was overturned, as well.

The 41-year-old said: “He (Anderson) is someone who, and I think he’s spoken about it that ‘I need to get motivated by being aggressive`... But the problem is at times I think he has overstepped the line, he has gone over the mark. Whether it was in this case or not we will actually never know." "You don’t mind the odd sledging. People are getting confused about the difference between sledging and actual what is abuse here. And people have said ‘oh lets move on`or `lets walk away from this`, but I think we can move on from sledging.”

Sledging v Abusing

Explaining the difference between sledging and abusing, he said: "We’ve been there, we’ve all played cricket games where you walk in and somebody uses the odd expletive when you get beaten and says ‘any chance of you nicking one`, you know ‘your feet are stuck in cement` stuff like that. You could go on and on about stuff like that, I’m sure that’s fine."

He concluded by saying: "But when you walk off the field abusing someone and making it personal, then I think that’s the danger when you do cross that line and things can happen where you get physical. So you have got to be very careful when you cross that line, and sort of stay within what is acceptable behaviour."