Shane Warne terms his punishment ‘Unfair’

Former Australian great and current skipper of the Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne, has termed the fine of $50,000 slapped on him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as “unfair”.  

The BCCI let the secretary of the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA), Sanjay Dixit, go free.

Speaking to the media, the dejected Warne said, “Unfair that I get fined while Sanjay Dixit gets away with saying whatever he feels like".

However, he admitted that his feud with the RCA secretary was uncalled for and immature, it is something that he would like to forget.

“My fight with Dixit was immature on both our parts. I got fined for telling the truth. The incident was silly, petty and a bit immature. I won't let this spoil my IPL and the experience I've had", he reiterated in his interview.

The 41-year old Warne had a heated spat with Sanjay Dixit after RR’s match last week, which the Royals lost, apparently Warne was upset about the defeat and was seen walking straight to Dixit right after the match and calling him a liar and egotistic.

The RR owner, Shilpa Shetty, had to rush in to defuse the situation, which prevented a fist fight between the two.

Later Dixit, accused Warne of pressurizing him to provide the Royals with a suitable pitch to play on during the home games, which apparently was not done and infuriated the RR skipper.

In order to brush the whole fiasco under the carpet, the RR management offered their apologies, which were not accepted by Dixit, who demanded a formal hearing into the incident.

He provided the BCCI and IPL officials Warne’s text messages, as evidence to his accusations against the belligerent spinner.

Later the BCCI was forced to convene a three member panel to hear out the two parties. The panel included Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman, Chirayu Amin, Ravi Shastri and IMG's legal counsel John Loffhagen.

The findings of the hearing were not released to the public, while no immediate punishments were announced. However, a day later, Warne was slapped with heavy fines for his rude public behaviour towards Dixit.

Before the event, Warne had already announced that this will be his last IPL, as he intends to retire from all forms of cricket at the end of this season of the lucrative league.