Romance out of cricket Night brawls, rowdyism, spot fixing, molestation come in as…
New Delhi/ Mumbai
Double trouble hit the lucrative Indian Premier League on Friday with an Australian player being arrested for assault
and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan being banned for five years from Mumbais Wankhede Stadium after a scuffle with security staff.
Opposition politicians went to the extent of demanding that the IPL, that has been drawing record crowds and TV audiences, be scrapped.
IPL was rocked by a fresh scandal when Royal Challengers Bangalore player Luke Pomersbach was arrested for allegedly molesting an American woman, Zohail Hameed, at the ITC Maurya Hotel in New Delhi and severely beating up her fiancee.
Pomersback was later released on interim bail till Saturday on a personal bond of Rs. 20,000. He had fainted in court as the hearing began but was quickly revived.
The fiance Sahil Peerzada, who is in his 30s and from Mumbai, has been admitted to Primus Hospital in the diplomatic area of the national capital.
Doctors attending on Peerzada said that his condition was stable. ‘Hes doing okay right now. An ear surgery was done and he might get discharged in 48 hours or so. He did not suffer any brain injury and his condition is stable,’said Deep Makkar, deputy medical superintendent of Primus Hospital.
Giving details of the incident, Hameed told a television channel that it happened when Pomersbach, along with some others, joined them for a drink in their room. After a while, she left the men alone and went to her bedroom for having a nap but Luke followed her and misbehaved with her, she alleged.
‘When I tried to turn around and go to my room, he grabbed my hand and tried to kiss me. My fiance said, alt145 Listen, she is not that kind of a girl. Just leave and go back to your roomalt39,’she said recounting the incident.
When her fiancee intervened, Luke allegedly punched him several times. ‘He got injured in his ear and started bleeding,’she said.
She also alleged that the hotel staff did not cooperate with her in calling the police.
The 27- year- old Pomersbachs conduct prompted RCB owner Vijay Mallya to
suspend the batsman, who has not played a single IPL match thus far this season, till the time he is cleared of the charges.
A case has been registered against the player under various sections of IPC, including outraging modesty of a woman, causing hurt, house trespass and attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment).
The Australian High Commission sent a diplomat to meet the cricketer and was also in touch with Delhi Police to provide him legal assistance.
IPL authorities sought to distance themselves from the incident with Chairman Rajiv Shukla saying the event had nothing to do with them.
‘We have done away with official parties. So if some individual player does something in his individual capacity in a hotel, IPL has nothing to do with it,’Shukla added.
However, BJP MP and former cricketer Kirti Azad alleged that the IPL ‘has given rise to many unsavoury incidents. Todays attempt to rape is one such ( incident)’. He said foreign players were taking advantage of the conditions here.
Pomersbach, who made his international debut when he was called into Australias Twenty20 side in Perth in December 2007, has a history of misbehavior under the influence of alcohol.
In 2009, after two hit- and- run incidents, Pomersbach was arrested and charged by police for driving with a blood alcohol level in excess of permissible limits, failing to stop and accompany police and escaping legal custody. The Western Australian Cricket Association suspended him indefinitely. He returned from his ban in January 2010.
Pomersbach has also played for Kings XI Punjab in the IPL in 2008- 09 season and made 152 in five innings, and was dismissed just once.
