‘Ask them to step aside…’: Gavaskar wants stricter punishment for Kohli, Gambhir; hints at suspension for brawl in IPL

Gavaskar questioned if fines were enough to guarantee it will never happen again and suggested stricter punishment like suspension for Kohli and Gambhir.

For an entire day, world cricket's attention shifted from IPL. All the talks about the high-scoring matches, the dominance from the defending champions Gujarat Titans and speculation over MS Dhoni's final season, all came to a standstill starting late Monday night when Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir entered into an ugly spat after the match between Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Ekana Stadium. Videos of the infamous altercation went viral on social media with the players extending their war to Instagram while BCCI played the part by handing hefty fines. But Sunil Gavaskar questioned if fines were enough to guarantee such a thing will never happen in the future.

Sunil Gavaskar reacts to feud between Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli

There was a flashpoint between Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq during the fag end of the match with umpires intervening along with Amit Mishra. Later, the battle extended to a post-match altercation where Kohli entered into a heated conversation with Gambhir before the teammates separated the two.

BCCI on Tuesday charged Kohli and Gambhir their entire match fees as a penalty for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct. However Gavaskar, in conversation with Star Sports, called for stricter measures to ensure that such fights do not take place in the future.

"Well, I saw the visuals only a while ago, I did not see the match live yesterday. These things never look good. What is a 100 per cent match fee? What exactly is a 100 per cent match fee? If it is Kohli, who is on maybe ₹17 crore for RCB, which means ₹17 crore for a possible 16 matches, including the semi-finals, and finals. So you are talking about a crore of rupees. Is he going to be fined ₹1 crore and more? Well, that's a very, very stiff fine," Gavaskar said.

"I don't know what Gambhir's situation is. They should ensure that this is not repeated. You are hoping that this is not repeated because it's such a stiff fine, such a stiff punishment. You want to play it hard, play it competitively. During the time that we played, there was a bit of banter, but there was none of this aggression that we see now. A lot of it has got to do with the fact that everything is on TV too. Because of the fact that you are on TV, you tend to do maybe just that little bit extra," he added.

The batting legend in fact called for suspension for a few games as one of the solutions so that even their respective teams bear the brunt.

"So, my point, do something which will make sure, these things don't happen again. If it has to you know, like it happened with Harbhajan and Sreesanth 10 years ago, that you have to ask them to maybe step aside for a couple of matches. Make sure you do something that ensures that these things don't happen and also something that will hurt the team. That's a stiff one," he added.