ST. JOHN’s, Antigua, May 18 West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) disciplinary committee member Richie Richardson finds International Cricket Council’s (ICC) laws too stringent.

Richardson, on Saturday, said they wanted to let-off Marlon Samuels with a warning for being involved with a bookie and a ban is too harsh for him.

“I think it (ruling) is unfair. There is nothing we could have done. If disciplinary committee had authority what we would have done was to give him a warning rather than a ban,” Richardson was quoted as saying in The Nation.

“But ICC are one who set out rules and we are guided by these. We aren’t one who banned Marlon for two years. We wouldn’t have done that and we will be issuing a statement to indicate that law needs to be revised because it is unfair,” he added.

Richardson, along with chairman Justice Adrian Saunders, Lloyd Barnett, Aubrey Bishop in their ruling, said they found Samuels guilty of “receiving money, benefit or other reward which could bring him or game of cricket into disrepute.”

Richardson he believed ICC laws were not working to bring harmony to cricket. “I’m personally disappointed. I don’t wish to be part of anything that is really going to destroy anyone’s career unfairly.”

“This (ICC) law seems to be made by somebody in an office somewhere who wants to be in control. I can understand problem we are having in the game with match-fixing and all of that. But Marlon naively befriended this guy or this guy befriended him.

“I haven’t seen anything to prove Marlon either deliberately gave out information or deliberately received funds from anyone. It is just he was in a jam in a foreign country and easiest thing was to call a friend and ask a friend to help him.”—Agencies