Saturday’s match against the Deccan Chargers was a big blow for Kolkata. They looked in control of the game till the final overs; in fact till the very last ball when Rohit Sharma took it all away in that sensational last over that he hit for 21 runs. Getting back to the trouble, McCullum has been reported by the on field umpires S Ravi and Rudi Koertzen for expressing dissent against a decision they made.

It so happened that in the first delivery of the 20th over, the final over of Deccan’s chase, S Ravi, standing at the Non-Strikers end no-balled the Kolkata Knight Riders for there being only three fielders in the 30 yards circle. In those tense final moments of the game, McCullum was infuriated by the decision and went on to have a lengthy discussion with the umpires. But after all that the decision stood, Kolkata lost the match, and McCullum was reported.

Dissent by players is considered to be a breach of Level one of the IPL Code of Conduct for players. In a hearing on Sunday at Sandton Sun in Johannesburg, match referee S Venkataraghavan, found him guilty and severely reprimanded him for his behavior.

McCullum did apologize for it, and admitted that his behavior was uncalled for: "I want to apologise for the reaction out there, it was purely out of emotion," he said. "We're going to try to stay as positive as we can. It's not easy being in a team that has lost of a lot of tight games."

It has been an unhappy season for Kolkata and they seem to be doing everything wrong. They have only a couple of matches left before the season closes; let’s hope things look brighter for them at least now.  

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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