My understanding was that when a player is banned they serve that ban for the next games their team plays, regardless of whether those games are Tests or ODI's.

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umeiV luphqhsesqe, all’ h luph umwn eiV caran genhsetai.

Thats exactly what I thought, how does an appeal against the ban automatically allow Gibbs to play in the up comming tests?

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Had cricket been a religion, Imran Khan would've been the god.

Alison - I don't think so, but I'd need to look at the Code of Conduct to be sure. May have some time over the weekend to do so, but not just now.

Other poster with ridiculous identifier: the sentence is suspended when the player lodges an appeal. It's that simple.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

As far as I understand, 1 Test is equivalent to 2 ODI and it's the match referee who decides whether the player is to be banned for Tests or ODIs. Normally, for Test related offences the player gets banned for Tests etc, but again the ref has the say, that's why Inzi got banned for ODIs, even though his offence was for Tests.

I notice that Smith is once again blaming the crowd for racially abusing his players. He used the same stunt in Australia without proof or basis. He was a liar in Austalia, and as such, one can only assume he is lying in this case.

What is funny in this case i must say, is that the two nations most famous for regularly howling about racism, are the ones embroiled in the racist controversy. The cricketing world will file this incident away in the memory banks for future use i suspect.

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The crowd, Seamer, is not above criticism - no one knows what they said, but given what they enticed Gibbs to say in return, it is easy to understand the provocation may it self have been of racist nature, or in the least, it must have been very unsavory, if not specifically racist. If people are seeing the support for Gibbs' punishment as a defense for the actions of those supposed 'fans', that is not the case. Such people, who we must at all times remember are in the minority, have no place in the game. And authorities every where should impose life bans on them.

Their actions however, does not, in turn justify the South African camp branding the whole spectra of Pakistani fans as being unruly. I was told that Smith's observations regarding us being "dangerous" should not be fret over much, because that man never speaks any sense, and I was growing into a kind of relief thinking that perhaps South African fans in general would be above holding such gilby generalised views. But I see now that the former fast bowler Fanie de Villiers has now come out and similarly branded Pakistan "world’s worst cricket fans" (report here), which is more disappointing, then it is annoying.

What I noticed again, is that whenever Pakistani fans are subjected to criticism it as in line with the action of those away from Pakistan, people have complained in the past about our fan based in England, and now in South Africa. Because, certainly, as I have seen it, the behaviour of Pakistani fans based in Pakistan has not seen any such complains. Indeed, in recent times, almost every touring team that has come here, from Sri Lanka to India to West Indies and England, both their fans and their media here have widely praised the "hospitality" they received, and there have been no complains, to my knowledge, regarding abuse from the crowd, of any kind, racial or otherwise.

Indeed SA it self, when it toured Pakistan a couple of years ago, made no such complains back then. Even though in the run up to that tour Smith had similarly implied a lot of false conjecture about Pakistan as a country and how safe it was. Pakistani fans then, could have, if they were, as Smith and De Villers imply, by inherent nature unruly and uncivilised, payed back Smith for his offensive comments by dishing up abuse for his team, but that was certainly not the case. I remember the one-day series, which was won by SA after being 0-2 down at one stage, saw full houses for each match, and no incident of any kind was reported. In fact the atmosphere was great.

So, perhaps countries should take a look their own systems, and ask the question, why such natives of their own countries, are unticed to such uncivilised behaviour. Or in the least, they should look at their in-stadium security facilities, and ask why such events are happening there? Security presence in Pakistan for cricket matches almost always is that of VIP standards, yes, I admit, it cuts down on a lot of the charm of seeing the cricket, but I cannot deny it is an approach that has been very affective.

Since India toured here for their historic tour of 2004, the first full tour they made in 14 years, Pakistan have had almost no reported crowd behaviour problems in international matches. When security has been on the thinner side, like it is in domestic matches, some madness has ensued. But nothing, to my recollection at the international level.

It is sad therefore to see that the image of Pakistan's crickets followers is being tarnished by the few who do not even really belong to Pakistan as such.

Wasn't there also some demonstrable physical violence involved (an assault on Ntini)? I haven't see the tape, but I thought I heard this reported.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

You mean ex-pats?

Yes, Ntini was hit in the face by a fan waving a Pakistani flag.

The thing is, Ntini is not the type that complains, so I think I can believe him when he said that. On the other hand, perhaps it was not intentional. Don't know.

Just one more thing...

On Monday 3 very interesting interviews were broadcast. One on radio, 2 on television.

1. A Pakistani fan (one of the 2 evicted from the ground) said that what he said to the SA team was not racist at all. He did not repeat what he said, but in his opinion, it was not that bad....

2. A family of South African supporters were also interviewed. They said (and repeated) what the Pakistani fans said. They also said that this happened in the "family's enclosure". That means an area designated for families. With kids. And they said the Pakistani fans were using very abusive language, so much so that some families left the area with their children...

3. And then there was ANOTHER interview. With a sports psychologist. He said if sportsmen like Gibbs and Harris did not know how to handle crowd taunts, they should rather not being playing sport at all...