The sus­pen­sion and fine of West In­dies wick­et­keep­er De­nesh Ramdin sent a firm, tough re­minder that the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil still val­ues fair play and hon­esty in the gen­tle­men's game, de­spite the ug­ly in­ci­dents of spot­fix­ing and match­fix­ing in re­cent years.On Fri­day, Mr Ramdin claimed a low catch off Pak­istan cap­tain Mis­bah-ul-Haq be­fore he had scored off fast bowler Ke­mar Roach in the ninth over of the in­nings. It was the West In­dies team's first match of the Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy, against Pak­istan.

Af­ter re­view­ing video ev­i­dence and a hear­ing to eval­u­ate the in­ci­dent, the ICC im­posed a two-match ban and 100 per cent fee for­feit on the wick­et­keep­er, a stern rep­ri­mand which has caused rip­ples of con­cern among vet­er­an crick­eters.

For­mer T&T Crick­et Board pres­i­dent Deryck Mur­ray lament­ed the loss of a spe­cialised play­er with no ready re­place­ment this ear­ly in the tour­na­ment, while for­mer WI fast bowler Michael Hold­ing ar­gued that there had been oth­er in­stances of poor sports­man­ship which were met with more for­giv­ing pun­ish­ments than the one met­ed out to Mr Ramdin.

But there are at least three fac­tors that should be con­sid­ered in eval­u­at­ing this penal­ty. One is that Mr Ramdin claimed the catch and then chose to en­ter a not-guilty plea when charged by the ICC, a provoca­tive move that chal­lenged the crick­et­ing body to prove its claims. In these days of cam­eras cap­tur­ing every an­gle, and in­stant re­plays avail­able to the third um­pire and mil­lions of tele­vi­sion view­ers, a play­er who choos­es to en­ter such a plea must be very sure of his facts.

And then there's the oth­er mat­ter that Mr Ramdin has be­come known for: a writ­ten taunt to Sir Vi­vian Richards, dis­played to tele­vi­sion cam­eras on the field dur­ing a match, once he felt that he had dis­proved the for­mer West In­dies skip­per's stat­ed con­cerns about his bat­ting per­for­mance.

Clear­ly the ICC want­ed to send a mes­sage that rip­pled from the very cream of the crick­et­ing crop down through the ranks to every play­er and as­pi­rant that the ex­pec­ta­tion that the civilised prin­ci­ples, prac­tices and con­duct that have been part of the game for so long would con­tin­ue to be up­held.Yes, Mr Ramdin got slammed for a mis­take on the field and the pun­ish­ment was un­usu­al­ly ro­bust, even for "con­duct that is con­trary to the spir­it of the game."

Mr Ramdin must step up and ac­knowl­edge his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, not just to the game's his­to­ry, but al­so the fu­ture that, as a mem­ber of the re­gion­al team and leader of the na­tion­al squad, he will un­doubt­ed­ly play a part in shap­ing.In de­liv­er­ing the judg­ment of the ICC's hear­ing, ad­ju­di­ca­tor ICC match ref­er­ee Chris Broad said, "I hope Mr Ramdin has learnt his les­son from this in­ci­dent and that we will not see such be­hav­iour by him or any play­er in the fu­ture."

It's hard to ar­gue with that as­sess­ment of Mr Ramdin's sit­u­a­tion and he should take the time now to re­dou­ble his ef­forts to raise his game.