Free for all in rugby match between Uzbek side and police team

A scuffle during a rugby match saw blood spilled on the Bombay Gymkhana field after blows were exchanged between Uzbekistan and Maharashtra State Police ruggers during the All India & South Asia Division 1 meet on Tuesday.

A high tackle on an Uzbekistan RFC side player by a MSP rugger with seven minutes to go for the whistle triggered a melee which left Uzbek winger Talipov Radik with a gashing cut on the right side of the forehead. Punches rained from both ends as the young visiting player from the only foreign side invited to compete in the championshipcontested the tackle. A fight broke out after MSP’s team and supporters joined in the scuffle, with the Uzbeks retaliating in kind.

Three referees who intervened to separate the two sides including Englishman Roy Maybanks also came in the line of attack,

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How times have changed

“The BCCI members had resolved in a working committee meeting recently that they were not happy with the Twenty20 version and will not play it.” This was Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sharad Pawar’s stance three years ago, when the Indian team’s participation in the inaugural edition of the World Twenty20 championship itself was in doubt.

Back then, the bigwigs in the board considered the format a bit of a joke. England might have needed T20 to “bring crowds back to the grounds” but India did not, was the general theme (and anyway, they whispered, the fast-paced nature of the game, with just a 10-minute break, didn’t lend itself to advertising revenue).

As Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team prepare to start their title defence, it’s hard not to chuckle at how, and how much, the board’s posturing on the game’s shortest format has changed.

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