Warriors got away lightly: Charlesworth

Mumbai Magicians coach Ric Charlesworth has termed ridiculous the punishment to suspend Punjab Warriors’ manager Jagbir Singh for a match for fielding 12 players in Sunday’s Hockey India League game.

The Warriors played with 12 men for the last five minutes of the final quarter against Mumbai, prompting the home side to lodge a complaint, which resulted in a suspension for Jagbir for one game.

“This is like slapping somebody with wet tissue. It is ridiculous. In my opinion, in all the competition we play in our country, if you have 12 fielders in the game, then you don’t win the match.

The game was close and for five minutes and not for a few seconds, they had 12 men,” Charlesworth said after his side’s defeat to Delhi Waveriders. It was Wizards’ fourth defeat in four matches.

“I find that extraordinary. You don’t win points when you do that. They had an extra player for five minutes. And the penalty means that this is a tactic that you can use, I imagine now. The fact that it happened for so long, is very unusual,” the Aussie added.

He also termed as sub-standard the umpiring in Monday’s game against Delhi Waveriders. “The umpiring is sub-standard. That is the problem. We are hoping it will work for us eventually,” he said.

Delhi Waveriders had beaten the home side 6-4.

Waveriders coach Ajay Kumar Bansal played down Charlesworth’s remark on umpiring and said it was quite okay.

“That was Charlesworth’s thinking, so it is not possible for me to criticise it. For me, umpiring was quite okay. If there was one Indian umpire, then Charlesworth can criticise.

The other umpire was not Indian. All the officials on the bench were not Indian. I don’t know why people are criticising,” he said.