ICC Action To Ban 3 Cricket Players Too Severe?

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Not really, according to senior sports journalist Debashish Datta who feels the International Cricket Council (ICC) should now stick to the decision and not revoke it based on pressure from individual boards.

Datta was participating in BoomNews's show #Cricket-O-Mania with Ayaz Memon and Shilpa Rathnam.

ICC has banned Bangladeshi cricketer Mohd Ashraful for eight years, New Zeland player Lou Vincent for three years and Sri Lankan cricketer Kaushal Loukarachchi for 18 months. While Ashraful and Vincent have been banned for their involvement in match-fixing, Loukarachchi has been banned for not informing the board about being approached by a bookie.

Memon feels "this kind of action was long overdue. It has now become a deep-rooted malice. And unless there is a strong deterrent, players may feel they may get away with it."

He added that corruption is now across all sports. "We have seen problems in football, tennis. How we address the issue is the challenge."

Datta feels ICC did not realise initially that this will spread like a contagious disease. "I agree that players who are found guilty of match-fixing should see all their achievements being deleted from the records."

He also feels that one way to tackle the issue would be cricket boards coaching young players how to stay away from fixing.