India 'A' captain Manish Pandey fined 25% match fees for showing dissent

India ‘A’ captain Manish Pandey has been slapped with a 25% match fee fine for showing dissent during his side’s victory against National Performance Squad on Sunday. The contentious incident had come about in the 28^th over of the Indian innings, on way to a thumping 86-run victory.

With the team score at 152/2, and Pandey himself batting on 31, he was given out leg before to a delivery by spinner Mitchell Swepson that rose on him. Playing it on his back foot, the ball struck Pandey’s pad before ballooning on to second slip. Pandey immediately indicated that he had made contact with the ball with his bat before it had struck his pad, but the umpire had already raised his finger.

As the Australians celebrated, Pandey stood his ground, at first with his hand on his helmet. Almost 10 seconds elapsed. The umpire began his walk down the wicket when Pandey finally thought better of it and walked to the pavilion. His displeasure had been made evidently clear though.

There were limited camera angles at the stadium, and technologies like Snicko were not available for the match, so there was no way of knowing who had been right. However, Pandey should have known there would be little point in tarrying at the crease once the finger had been raised.

The 26-year-old had scored a duck on the first match of the ongoing tour Down Under against Australia ‘A’, before putting up an unbeaten ton against South Africa ‘A’. He had been batting at strike rate in excess of 100 against NPS too, and was looking to put up another big score.

Pandey was charged with a fine of 30% of his match fees for breaching ICC Code of Conduct’s Article 2.1.5 – showing dissent at an umpire’s decision in an international match – a level 1 offence. Pandey admitted the offence but challenged the fine. Consequently, the match referee set the fine at 25% of his match fees considering the fact that this is his first ever breach, and Pandey accepted.

India ‘A’ have five matches remaining in the quadrangular series, and have climbed the table with two wins on the trot, after having succumbed to a humiliating defeat against Australia ‘A’ in the first match.