Dorset league hits player with 18-match ban

The Dorset Cricket League have handed down an 18-match ban on a player who claims that what started as a dressing-room prank spiraled out of control.

Glen Dawson, a 27-year-old New Zealander who plays for Weymouth, admitted pinning a picture of rival side Colehill's West Indian allrounder Carl Brissett on the dressing-room wall, with a caption underneath which read "kill the ****". Colehill players saw the photograph, complained to umpires, and a league investigation was undertaken.

In addition to Dawson's ban, Weymouth were docked 35 points and so were demoted from second and overtaken by Colehill.

Michael Pearce, Weymouth's secretary, told The Dorset Echo: "We're still coming to terms with the decision. We took this matter very seriously, considered our position and decided to ban Glen for the rest of last season for what he did. We explained our position at the hearing and have now been told he has an 18-game ban, made up of two games for a previous offence and 16 for this incident."

Dawson's punishment starts at the beginning of next summer, so ruling him out of almost all the league season. "This is obviously a serious punishment," Pearce explained to the newspaper. "As a club, we need time to sit down and consider our position and whether we want to appeal."

Dawson explained to The Echo that he had apologised for what he did. "I accept it was a stupid thing to do ... it had nothing to do with race, it was about him as a person."