With his uninhibited stroke-play and brazen body language, Sir Viv Richards was undoubtedly the most feared batsman of his era. Long retired from the game, the West Indian has launched another scathing attack. But this time, it is off the field and targeted towards the International Cricket Council (ICC).
NDTV Sports reported the 64-year old criticizing the sport’s governing body for reprimanding the behavior of the Caribbean players following their victory at the World T20. Not stopping at that, he even openly claimed that the ICC was biased towards Indian cricket.
Richards asserted, “So, if you are the sole governing body of world cricket, then everyone should be coming under the same umbrella. The Indians do not play certain things the ICC may have in its rules. They totally ignore that and they have been getting away with it for years.”
The Antigua-born cricketer elaborated, “There are rules in the one-day game under the auspices of the ICC, like for instance the system where you go back to the third umpire and things like that.”
Earlier, the ICC had issued a statement condemning the actions of the West Indies players in the aftermath of the high-voltage summit clash against England in Kolkata. Skipper Darren Sammy publicly lambasted the inefficiency of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) during the post-match presentation.
In a press release, the apex body had rebuked, “The board considered the behavior of some of the West Indies players in the immediate aftermath of the final, and unanimously agreed that certain comments and actions were inappropriate, disrespectful and brought the event into disrepute.”
Richards noted, “I am only trying to hit back because of what they are trying to do because of Sammy's comments. They are trying to be a body that if you say this, it's out of order then you're going to be this and you're going to be that.”
He added, “When you look around the world in terms of the governance of the ICC, there are rules for some and not others.” It will be interesting to see whether the ICC would choose to react on the controversial comments made by the celebrated Hall of Famer.
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