Balaji fined for excessive appealing

India's paceman, Lakshmipathy Balaji, has had the gloss taken off his outstanding performance in the first Test at Mohali, after he was fined 30% of his match fee for excessive appealing.

Balaji was reported to Chris Broad, the ICC match referee, after taking a career-best 9 for 171 - a performance that had all but secured victory over Pakistan, until Kamran Akmal and Abdul Razzaq combined to thwart his progress.

If Balaji's appealing was excessive, then there were at least mitigating circumstances. After recovering from a groin injury, it was his first match back in the side for nearly a year, so his enthusiasm was perhaps understandable, and in bowling a tight wicket-to-wicket line, that resulted in four batsmen being bowled, two lbws and a caught-behind, he was at least hitting the right areas for an appeal or two.

However the two umpires, Darrell Hair and Rudi Koertzen, felt he had overstepped the mark, and Broad agreed. "There is no place for this sort of appealing," he said in a statement. "The player apologised and I hope that will be the end of the matter."

The second match of the three-Test series gets underway in Kolkata on Wednesday.