Slapgate likely to cost Bhajji dear

The incident where Harbhajan is alleged to have slapped Sreesanth took an ugly turn after the Kings XI Punjab team decided to go ahead with filing an official complaint. Later, Mumbai Indians — in keeping with the ICC Code of Conduct — appointed South African Shaun Pollock as captain in place of Harbhajan and sidelined the latter pending enquiry.

On the eve of the hearing, IPL commissioner and BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi said the in-stadium cameras “did pick up something” which will be used as evidence. “What went wrong was that the players, after pledging to uphold the MCC Spirit of Cricket, crossed the line. Harbhajan said he was provoked,” he said.

Under the circumstance, Harbhajan is likely to be sternly reprimanded, if not slapped with a severe punishment, after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has taken a serious view of the episode. BCCI chief administrative officer, Prof Ratnakar Shetty, and secretary Niranjan Shah, have both termed Harbhajan’s behaviour as “unheard of” and “shameful.”

In fact Shetty said that “if the players haven’t realised it as yet, they better do so because this is serious cricket. The board stands behind its players, but it doesn’t mean any nonsense will be tolerated.”

The seriousness with which the BCCI has taken this issue stems from the fact that they’ve had to cop a lot of criticism following this episode. For reasons similarly outrageous — when Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds were involved in a spat in Australia — the BCCI had left no stone unturned to ensure that the off-spinner was left unharmed. Now, when the same player has been found guilty of misconduct again, this time assaulting his national teammate, the board seems to have made up its mind to pull up the “habitual offender.”

Engineer has already said that the incident will be taken very seriously and “we are not going to sweep things under the carpet.”

A minimum punishment of a five-Test or 10-ODI ban appears likely for Harbhajan, though it is to be seen if the match referee bans him from any of the IPL matches.

The board had served a show cause notice to the bowler. He will attend the hearing with Mumbai Indians coach Lalchand Rajput, while Sreesanth will arrive with captain Yuvraj Singh.