'You have to ask them to maybe step aside for a couple of matches' - Sunil Gavaskar demands stricter punishment for players involved in verbal battle

In the match between Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore at Ekana Stadium on May 1, former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir and current star Virat Kohli got involved in a heated argument, which saw them getting charged with Level 2 offenses by the IPL organizing committee.

Notably, the argument started between LSG pacer Naveen-ul-Haq and Virat Kohli as they went after each other during the last few overs of the match, which continued till the post-match routine handshake. Right after that, Gambhir got involved and things went out of hand. Thus, to avoid such a situation in the future, former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar wants BCCI to get stricter as monetary fines mean very little because players like Virat Kohli are earning a lot of money by playing in the Indian Premier League.

“What is a 100 percent match fee? What exactly is a 100 percent match fee? If it is Kohli, who is on maybe Rs 17 crore for RCB, which means Rs 17 crore for a possible 16 matches, including the semi-finals, and finals. So you are talking about a crore of rupees. Is he going to be fined Rs 1 crore and more? Well, that's a very, very stiff fine. I don't know what Gambhir's situation is.

“They should ensure that this is not repeated. You are hoping that this is not repeated because it's such a stiff fine, such a stiff punishment. You want to play it hard, play it competitively. During the time that we played, there was a bit of banter, but there was none of this aggression that we see now. A lot of it has got to do with the fact that everything is on TV too. Because of the fact that you are on TV, you tend to do maybe just that little bit extra,” Gavaskar stated while talking to Star Sports.

Do something which will make sure, these things don't happen again: Sunil Gavaskar

The former cricketer also hinted at suspending both Gambhir and Kohli after their verbal altercation. He gave the example of the Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth saga, which saw the cricketers getting suspended. Thus, he bats for a stricter punishment so that things like this don’t happen again in the future.

“So, my point, do something which will make sure, these things don't happen again. If it has to you know, like it happened with Harbhajan and Sreesanth 10 years ago, that you have to ask them to maybe step aside for a couple of matches. Make sure you do something that ensures that these things don't happen and also something that will hurt the team. That's a stiff one," he added.