Cricket Was A Gentleman's Game, No More Now - Kapil Dev

Over the years, the game of cricket has always been called the gentleman’s game for the behaviour of the cricketers on the field. But, the former Indian skipper Kapil Dev feels that culture has vanished and cricket is no more a gentleman’s game, especially, after the recent set of things happened in the ICC U19 World Cup 2020 grand finale between India and Bangladesh.

The players of both teams were involved in a spat after the completion of the enticing finale. In a match where Indian team was the certain favourites, the young Bangladeshi side came out all guns blazing and claimed a win in a hard-fought, rain-affected match.

However, after the match, some ugly scenes were witnessed when there was a reported physical altercation between the players of the two teams.

As soon as the match ended, it became tense with Bangladeshi players rushing to the ground and most of them still displaying aggressive body language.

I think it was horrible – Kapil Dev

In fact, one India player rushed to confront and pushed a Bangladeshi player who had allegedly used a cuss word at him and then India’s coach Paras Mhambrey went ahead to calm his boys.

Speaking of the same, Dev stated that the players must be punished hard for the conduct and blame should be given to the manager.

“Who’s saying cricket is a gentleman’s game? It’s not the gentleman’s game, it was! What happened between those young people I think it was horrible. The cricket boards should take hard steps today so that tomorrow these type of mistakes do not happen,” Kapil said at an event, referring to the ugly post-match scenes in the U-19 World Cup final held last Sunday at Potchefstroom in South Africa.

“You lost the match, you have no right to go back to the ground and fight with anybody. Come back. You should give more blame to the captain, manager and the people who were sitting outside. Sometimes, if you are an 18-year-old boy, he doesn’t understand. But if you’re a manager, that’s your responsibility to take care of the situation,” he added.