Ok. But he surely had the advantage of flat roads. Ishant took these wickets despite that.
But there is punishment already for things, like ball tampering, that's in runs.
That's the point though. Professional players will do whatever they can to win, and the point of penalties is to make the punishment greater than the reward. It will not work any other way.
I agree, but we have a problem when a captain could (theoretically, this hasn't actually happened) just say "alright, I'll deliberately slow down the overs and cop my fine/suspension in order to win this test". That's a problem, because the result has still been unfairly altered, even if the guy cops a one match ban afterwards or something. It's kinda like the chucking thing, it's all well and good to impose a ban after the fact, but if the person breaking the rules alters the course of a match, you've got a problem that needs an on-field fix.
No its Sharma for me, on dead pitches like the one' we had bowling and fast bowling in particular has been really tough, but Sharma has been head and shoulders above every bowlers in this series so he deserves to awarded as the MOTS, but considering its a batsmen' game Gambhir might get it in the end.
Treat them like kids and they'll act like it. Everyone's quick to hit the punitive hot-button when they don't like something, it's ultimately counter-productive, poisons any goodwill. You think stuff like over-rates becoming an issue and worsening player opinion of ICC/CA/BCCI/etc. aren't related?
But they've been asking the captains to be adults for years now by just have a paper-penalty. It's clearly not working.
That's where the umpires need to throw their weight around on the field AFAIC, as soon as the umpires realise that the bowling team or the batting team are intentionally slowing down the game or using overly negative tactics, the umpires should step in and try to rectify the issue.
You're still blaming the players. Why should they respect their masters when their masters aren't worthy of respect? It's a far more complex issue than "Bad players. BAD!".
