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Faf questions severity of 'shirt flick' punishment

Cape Town - Proteas captain Faf du Plessis believes that banned Proteas speedster Kagiso Rabada has been unfairly treated.

Rabada was on Monday banned for two Test matches after the ICC found him guilty of 'inappropriate and deliberate physical contact with a player' in the second Test against Australia in Port Elizabeth.

The incident happened on day one when an animated Rabada brushed shoulders with Australian captain Steve Smith after getting him out. 

Rabada was eventually docked three demerit points for that incident, taking his total tally to eight and seeing him hit with the ban. 

It was the same punishment that Dave Warner received after his now infamous stairwell confrontation with Quinton de Kock during the first Test in Durban.

That, Du Plessis said, was where he was struggling to come to grips with Rabada's ban. 

"How I see it is that the charge against KG was a Level 2 with three demerit points and the charge against Warner was Level 2 with three demerit points," Du Plessis explained.

"For me, if you look at both of those incidents, one is brushing of shirts and the other is far more aggressive.

"That was my question: why are both these incidents labelled as exactly the same?

"In a normal situation would say that the contact was very minimal ... it was a shirt flick of two players and you would probably get one or two demerit points because it wasn't full body contact.

"But that's from where I'm sitting as a player and not an official."

South Africa have another day to decide whether or not they would like to appeal the decision.

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