Azeem Rafiq Handed A Ban And Fine After His Twitter Comments
Azeem Rafiq, the Pakistan born Yorkshire off spinner, has been handed down a one month ban from all cricket and a fine of £500 after his comments on Twitter about the under 19 England coach, John Abraham. He had violated the England Cricket Board Directive and had to be punished accordingly.
Rafiq captained England in an unimpressive first Test of the series, where they lost to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/John-Abrahams-c67233 is a useless w****r.”
After the incident, a Cricket Discipline Commission panel, led by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Edward-Slinger-c55590, Ricky Needham and Matthew Wheeler, assembled on Tuesday to consider the charges and hand down a decision. There were two charges they had to discuss; the first was the personal attack in a public statement and then the game had been disgraced as a result of that public statement.
According to a statement released by the England Cricket Board, Rafiq had pleaded guilty to both charges and had been very apologetic for his actions. The Cricket Discipline Commission panel however, handed down a suspension from all cricket under ECB’s jurisdiction for one month, and he was ordered to pay £500, which would go to the cost of the hearing.
The statement went on to say, “The panel considered this to be a serious breach of the regulations particularly given Rafiq's position as captain of the England U19 side.” The ECB’s decision was better than the chief executive of Yorkshire, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Stewart-c91370 Regan’s reaction. Yorkshire have suspended Rafiq indefinitely, Regan said in a statement, “Azeem's behavior was totally unacceptable and the club will not tolerate it. Our professional players are role models to aspiring young cricketers and need to behave as such.”
Andrew Strauss, the England captain, who had experienced something similar with teammate Tim Bresnan – Bresnan had to apologize after his comments during the Champions Trophy of last year. Strauss who was preparing for the Test against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 said that players had to take responsibility for their actions, whatever the age. “What I would say is that if you haven't led by example and have let yourself down you've got to take it on the chin and learn from it.” For a start players should be aware that what they write on Twitter is going to be seen by people they might not want it to be seen by. We've had a number of occasions of that happening, so I'd say to be very careful on that,” Strauss told reporters.
He also offered advice to players saying that they had to learn to handle their frustrations; he said that there was the right way to react to things and the wrong way. He felt Rafiq had reacted the wrong way, especially since he was the one at fault. He said that it was important to learn from such incidents and not repeat them in the future. He said that Rafiq was still young, and should try and maintain his place in the squad, because there were plenty of players who could replace him.
Rafiq was also involved in another controversy earlier, in 2008, when http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Durham-c782. Rafiq did not hold a British passport, which made him ineligible to participate in the match, since he was not properly registered. However, that was much less his fault than the recent incident.
Other tweeter’s include England’s Graeme Swann, who has a large following and interesting posts, but somehow always manages to avoid getting into trouble. James Anderson is also known to share his frustrations with the fans via Twitter. Australian batsman, Phil Hughes was not so lucky with his rants, he faced the wrath of Cricket http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 when he announced his exclusion from the third Test of the Ashes before the coach had intended to make it public.
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