Players are heroes, should act responsibly on field: Sehwag

Mumbai, Jan 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) A day after England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler questioned the need for viewers to have access to the audio from stump microphones, former India opener Virender Sehwag called for players to act more responsibly on the language they use as children consider them "heroes".

Buttler was fined 15 per cent of his match fee for breaching Level 1 of the ICC Code of Conduct during the fifth day of the second Test against South Africa in Cape Town. Buttler's foul-mouthed rant at South African pacer Vernon Philander went viral on social media and landed him in trouble.

"Abusing on the field is not healthy. My kids ask me papa (father) what did he say after getting him out. I had to lower the (TV) volume and remove eye contact with my child," Sehwag said while delivering the seventh Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi Lecture at the BCCI Awards here.

Sehwag opined that while stump microphones cannot be taken away from the game, players need to draw a line somewhere as they are widely idolised and considered as 'heroes' especially by children.

"Players are heroes. There is no way to take stump microphones out of the game. Maybe drawing the line at some point is the solution. Healthy banter makes Test cricket interesting but without using bad words," said the Indian great.

He followed it up with some tongue-in-cheek comments on India wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant's "baby-sitting" skills and teaching the Australians Hindi ahead of India's three-match ODI series against Australia starting here from Tuesday.

"There are lot of things, I want to do like sledge the Aussies in Hindi. They will not understand at all and can just smile back. But then I don't want to underestimate Rishabh Pant's baby sitting skills, who knows he might have taught them Hindi as well," Sehwag said in his inimitable style.

Sehwag also backed five-day Tests over the ICC's proposal to curtail it to four days to draw more eyeballs. "Chaar din ki chandni hoti hai, Test match nahi...Jal ki machli jal main hi acchi hai, bahar nikaloge toh mar jaegi (The moon shines for four days, not a Test match. A fish looks better in water, since if you take it out, it will die)," he added.

He also showed solidarity with the Australian bushfire victims saying: "I want to let my Australian friends know that whole of India prays for the massive bushfires."

Source: IANS