Kieron Pollard and Mitchell Starc get away with minor fines after ugly spat in IPL

Kieron Pollard and Mitchell Starc got away with match fee fines after an extremely ugly spat on the field in IPL

Kieron Pollard and Mitchell Starc were fined 75% and 50% of their match fee respectively after their heated incident in the Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers Bangalore match in IPL at Wankhede on Tuesday.

Match referee Andy Pycroft took the decision to enforce fines on these players after reviewing the incident. Clearly, the duo have walked away with much lenient punishment after tempers flared last night.

“Mr Starc admitted to the level 2 offence (Article 2.2.11) of conduct contrary to the spirit of the game and accepted the sanction of a fine of 50% of his match fee. Mr Pollard admitted to the level 2 offence (Article 2.2.7) of throwing his bat at or near a player and accepted the sanction of a fine of 75% of his match fee,” the press release on iplt20.com said.

Both the skippers – Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli – were also fined for slow over rates. While Kohli was fined Rs. 12 lakh, this was Rohit Sharma’s second slow rate offence this season and the Mumbai captain was fined Rs. 24 lakh. Apart from Rohit, all 10 MI players were also fined Rs. 6 lakh or 25% of match fee, whichever is lesser.

For violating Article 2.1.1 of the Code of Conduct for a breach of paragraph 4.2 of IPL Clothing Regulations, RCB’s Varun Aaron was also reprimanded, the release stated.

Pollard and Starc were involved in an ugly spat on the night which began when Starc bowled a bouncer at Pollard and followed it up with some abuse directed at the West Indian, whose response was to wave away at Starc. [Watch the fight between Starc and Pollard]

On the next delivery, Pollard pulled out of his stance just when Starc was about to reach the bowling crease, but Starc threw the ball anyway, which narrowly missed Pollard. The big West Indian then brandished his bat at Starc, attempting to throw it but only dropped it on the ground.

In light of such behaviour, there’s no doubt that these fines are too lenient on players who gave little thought about protecting the sanctity of the game by almost using the bat and ball for harming each other.