Gambhir reprimanded for comments on Rajasthan

Gautam Gambhir, the Delhi Daredevils captain, has been reprimanded by the IPL for his negative comments on Rajasthan Royals after his team's comprehensive 67-run win at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Wednesday, their third successive win. Gambhir said at the post-match presentation that besides the attacking Yusuf Pathan, the rest of the batsmen were "ordinary".

"I think Rajasthan was never a threat. Except for Yusuf Pathan, the other guys were pretty ordinary," Gambhir said. "We weren't really worried about anyone else." Chasing 189, Rajasthan stumbled to 32 for 4 and never recovered. Yusuf contributed a 14-ball 24 and was the fifth out at 66.

Gambhir was reported by IPL chairman Lalit Modi, and pleaded guilty to a level 1 offence (section 2.1.7), which relates to "Public criticism of, or inappropriate comment in relation to an incident occurring in a Match or any Player, Team Official, Match Official or Team participating in any Match, irrespective of when such criticism or inappropriate comment is made." Gambhir however escaped a fine, which carries a maximum penalty of upto 50% of the match fee.

Yusuf is Rajasthan's leading run-scorer with 274 runs at a massive strike-rate of 179.08. He smashed a century off just 37 balls against Mumbai Indians, and became only the second Indian player - after Manish Pandey - to score an IPL hundred. The defeat to Delhi halted their bid to make it five wins on the trot.