Cricket Blog

Correction, correction…

A lot of so-called “neutral observers” have mentioned that India’s reaction to the SCG test has been way over the top, the BCCI are bullies, the Indian players are hypocrites, Harbhajan Singh is a racist, the burning of effigies is a barbaric act. I could go on and on.

All the above comments/theories are not going to make matters any easy, they are going to further enrage a nation that is already on the brink of pulling out of the tour. Let me point something out before I start shredding these statements apart. First and foremost, cricket is not a passion in India, it is a religion in its most literal term. The psyche of an Indian fan is that their players are like gods that are battling it out with the rest of the world. So what if they lose. Hey the English only won the Soccer World Cup once, and yet over there soccer is the same as what cricket is in India. What about Aussie rules football. Who really knows about this sport besides the Australians. And yet it overtakes cricket or any other sport in popularity. Oh, and don’t even get me started talking about the crowd/players behavior during a Carlton-Collingwood match.

Cricket is not a contact sport, but the way sledging and intimidation is going on, it may very well become. How much crap can a person take before he gives it back. The Indian players are not like bowling pins that every Tom, Dick and Harry comes and knocks them over. This isn’t India under Mahatma Gandhi that believes in non-violence as the key. This is a young and aggressive India who knows its history of being oppressed by foreigners. So why should they be intimidated by a team that has a known history of insulting, abusing and discriminating its opponents.

I completely agree with Peter Roebuck (theage.com.au writer) that Harbhajan was a pawn in the mind games of the Aussies. They did not sledge against Tendulkar or Dravid as they knew better than to charge those two up with “silly banter”. Harbhajan was provoked, responding to bullshit from Andrew Symonds. And now we hear reports that Symonds might have misinterpreted a common abuse (ie “Maa kee”) to monkey. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Harbhajan is from Punjab and being a Punjabi I know that using Maa Kee in conversations is very common amongst men from that demography.

Harbhajan was termed a racist by the Australian media even before the ruling came out. The TV news constantly showed the Mumbai crowd footage that had Symonds being described as a Monkey. At one point it seemed that Bhajji was directly responsible for the crowd’s behavior. Isn’t that going a bit over the top. Why wouldn’t, in fact why shouldn’t, Indian media respond to this kind of intimidation.

Let’s come to the burning of effigies part. And this is where it really did go over the top. But just like a few people in the SCG crowd passing racist comments doesn’t represent a nation, neither does burning of effigies resemble what the nation does. Although it does reflect the mood of the country. These people are the uneducated lot who don’t know better than to do what they are told to do by some sick minded politician using this for his own personal gain.

There has been a lot of coverage these days of a Harbhajan dismissal to Kevin Pieterson in the India-England one-day series last year. It shows Bhajji standing his ground to being bowled. But it is quite logical as to why he was standing. He thought the wicket-keeper had stumped him. When he got bowled, he did not know if the ball hit the stumps directly as the keeper was standing up to the stumps. Why else would a batsman stay on the crease if he was bowled. Even Michael Clarke would not be that stupid, though I am not sure how low he can get to stay on the crease.

Lets come to Sachin Tendulkar’s LBW in the first innings when he was on 20. No batsman complains about an LBW as he is not sure if he is out or not out unless its an edge onto the pads. That decision is upto the discretion of the umpire. Although he may have been lucky, you cannot compare an LBW to an edge. When a batsman is given out Leg Before Wicket to ducking and being hit on the shoulder, there is not much left to argue.

So, yes, the nation is furious. First to the Umpiring debacle and then the corresponding guilty verdict handed to Harbhajan Singh. Mike Procter says he was convinced that Bhajji was guilty because Andrew Symonds was backed by Ricky “The Cheater of the New Millennium” Ponting, Adam “The Saint” Gilchrist, Matthew “The Bully” Hayden and Michael “The Loser of the Year” Clarke. Yet when perhaps the most revered player after Sir Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar says that Bhajji did not racially insult Symonds, his word was thrown in the toilet and flushed away. And then they say that Bhajji was racist. What the hell was this decision based on if not some personal agenda of Mike Procter.

In the end, I want to say is that this match has touched a rare nerve in India and all the ICC can do is take some quick-fix measures. What they should have done is called for an immediate inquiry into the decision-making process. They should have called for a stop to sledging. They should have made a decision to turn on the pitch microphones so anything and everything can be recorded. Malcolm Speed’s response to Cricket Australia to mind their player’s behavior is not based on ICC’s observations. But he claims that since the public is outraged by their behavior then there must be a problem. Looks to me as another Australian supporting Ricky Ponting and his team’s policies.

Malcolm Speed should, for the sake of cricket, get an inquiry setup to get rid of all the incompetent officials in the ICC and get them replaced by people who can do a better job. Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor have yet to apologize for there disgusting umpiring, yet when Simon Taufel gave Tendulkar out incorrectly he said sorry straightaway. That is the mark of a great umpire who is not afraid, and has no egos, to admit his own mistakes.

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