As if to show that he is his own man, and not afraid to crack the whip, Mahendra Singh Dhoni came up with a very public censure of paceman S Sreesanth. Dhoni's comments came a few hours after the Kerala paceman was fined 25 percent of his match fee for excessive appealing in the semifinal win against Australia.

"Someone has to take the responsibility of keeping him in check, and why not me? After all, I am the captain," Dhoni said on Sunday afternoon. "He has to play according to the way I want him to. He has to draw the line, he has to understand that this is international cricket. There are certain guidelines in place, and he has to follow those guidelines. It works out well if he follows the guidelines. After all, he is a talented cricketer and he has got the skills to do well at the international level. If he doesn't use his mind, getting banned for four or five matches doesn't help him or the team. Either he gets to learn it the soft way or the tough way, but he will learn -- he has to."

Strong words from a man no more then a few games in charge, but then again, Dhoni has been his own man. Is his personality rubbing off on the rest of the team, he was asked, with the boys unafraid to express themselves on the field? "I want them to express themselves," the skipper replied. "As Indian cricketers, we have been known in the past to control our emotions. We want to play it the hard way. If someone wants a verbal war, we are ready for it. You don't have to have the talent for it!" On Saturday, the captain was all praise for Sreesanth's incisiveness with the ball. "That's what the need of the team is. He needs to click at the right time, which he did today. He lifted his game when it mattered. I would love it for him to perform in the same way in the final too."

Match referee pulls up Sreesanth  
Johannesburg, DHNS: Indian paceman S Sreesanth was fined 25 percent of his match fee for excessive appealing by match referee Chris Broad during the 15-run win over Australia in the semifinal of the Twenty20 World Cup in Durban on Saturday.

The Indian team was also fined five percent of their match fees for maintaining a slow over-rate after falling one over short of its requirement when time allowances were taken into consideration, and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was slapped with a ten percent fine.

Sreesanth pleaded guilty to a Level 1 offence after accepting that he breached clause 1.5 of the ICC Code of Conduct relating to excessive appealing .

Apart from the fine, Broad also warned Sreesanth about his conduct going forward, adding that if he continued to breach the Code of Conduct, he could expect more severe penalties in future.