'You lost the match; you have no right to go back to the ground and fight with anybody. You should give more blame to the captain, manager and the people who were sitting outside.'
Former India captain Kapil Dev termed the unsavoury incident involving India and Bangladesh players after the ICC Under-19 World Cup final in Potchefstroom on Sunday as "horrible", saying cricket is no more a "gentleman's game".
The 1983 World Cup-winning India captain urged the Board of Control for Cricket in India to take strong action against the erring cricketers to set an example.
"Who's saying cricket is a gentleman's game? It's not the gentleman's game, it was!" said Kapil, who also relived memories of India's 1983 World Cup triumph under his leadership.
Two Indians -- Akash Singh and Ravi Bishnoi -- and three Bangladeshi players -- Towhid Hridoy, Shamim Hossain and Rakibul Hasan -- were found guilty of breaching the ICC Code of Conduct as a players from both the sides nearly came to blows after Bangladesh beat India by three wickets to win their maiden Under-19 World Cup title.
"What happened between those young people I think it was horrible. The cricket boards should take hard steps today so that tomorrow these types of mistakes do not happen," Kapil said.
"You lost the match; you have no right to go back to the ground and fight with anybody. Come back. You should give more blame to the captain, manager and the people who were sitting outside. Sometimes, if you are an 18-year-old boy, he doesn't understand. But if you are a manager, that's your responsibility to take care of the situation," he added.
Some of the Bangladeshi players got carried away with their celebration after their historic win in the final as they celebrated wildly in front of the Indian players.
While their captain Akbar Ali apologised for the "unfortunate incident", his Indian counterpart Priyam Garg felt the episode should not have happened.
