agencies
BIRMINGHAM, 10 JUNE: Sri Lanka’s Tillakaratne Dilshan (in photo left) and Mahela Jayawardena (in photo right)have been officially reprimanded for their excessive appealing during the team’s Champions Trophy match against New Zealand in Cardiff.
According to the International Cricket Council, Dilshan and Jayawardena were found to have breached Article 2.1.5 of the ICC code of conduct, which related to “excessive appealing during an international match”. The charges were laid by on-the-field umpires Bruce Oxenford and Rod Tucker, as well as third umpire Ian Gould and fourth umpire Steve Davis.
Dilshan and Jayawardena were charged with excessive and prolonged appealing in the keenly-contested, low-scoring match that New Zealand won by one-wicket last night.
Both the players pleaded guilty to a Level 1 breach of the code and the matter was decided on by match referee Andy Pycroft.  “Irrespective of the outcome of an umpire’s decision, players are not entitled to making prolonged appeals as these can be construed as pressuring the umpires. Both the players accepted their mistake and apologised for their actions,” Pycroft later said.
All Level 1 breaches carry a minimum penalty of an official reprimand and a maximum penalty of 50 per cent of a player’s match fee. In Colombo, Ravana Balaya (Ravana Force), a Buddhist monks’ nationalist group, today staged a demonstration in front of the Sri Lanka Cricket headquarters in protest against an ICC faux pas during the opening ceremony of the Champions Trophy tournament in Cardiff. The group criticised SLC for its inability to lodge a complaint with the ICC for playing a Hindi song, discarding Sri Lanka’s national anthem, last week.
“This is a betrayal of the nation. SLC must explain why a Hindi song was played in place of our national anthem,” the group said. SLC told the monks that the ICC had already offered an apology to Sri Lanka.
Francis dead
Sri Lankan umpire K T Francis, who had stood in the islanders’ inaugural Test match in 1982, died of diabetes, family sources said today.
He was 73. He was a member of the ICC’s international panel of umpires and officiated in 25 Tests and 56 One-Day Internationals between 1982 and 1999.