Manchester: Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni today came out fighting once again in the James Anderson-Ravindra Jadeja case, firmly stating that he stands by what he said during the whole saga and that they brought forward “something that was unacceptable”.
Ahead of the fourth Test versus England, starting here tomorrow, all the talk continued to be about the incident that has marred the five-match series.
Both Anderson and Jadeja were pronounced non-guilty by the ICC' judicial commission last Friday and the game's world governing body has decided not to appeal against the verdict despite a request from BCCI.
“I did something that was right and I stand for what's right and what's wrong,” said Dhoni, referring to his support for the all-rounder.
“If something wrong is happening, I will go against it irrespective of who is doing it. If one of my players gets fined and if he's within the boundary lines, I will definitely go and defend him. But if he crosses that line, I won't come and he will go alone and face the consequences.”
When asked if the ICC verdict was personal humiliation for him since he was so vocal about the issue, Dhoni denied the same and said, “It was physical contact that we reported about. We never said anything about sledging. Quite a few harsh words were spoken but we didn't report that.”
“What is more important is that we brought forward something that we thought was unacceptable. What happens beyond that, it is not in my jurisdiction to punish or award penalties. We thought this incident was bad for the game so we brought it forward. It's up to the ICC and others to see what needs to be done,” he added.
Talking specifically about the verdict given out, the Indian skipper said, “In our society we have something called evidence and something called lack of evidence. So the verdict is mostly on those lines and it is time for us to move ahead.”
“What is however very interesting is that Jadeja was fined and as I said (previously) there's not even one percent mistake committed from his side. So it is good for us that allegations against him were dropped based on the evidence available.
“However it is really interesting what David Boon saw/found out on the basis of which he fined 50 percent of Jadeja's match fees,” he further added.
