I had started writing this post yesterday soon after the match between India and Australia ended at Sydney. When I say 'match' I use the term very loosely to describe the fractious brawl that the contest had turned into towards the end and especially in the post match posturings. A 'match' pre-supposes certain essentials like 'right spirit', 'fairplay' and 'justice'. When these are missing, the contest does not remain a 'match' but becomes, as Peter Roebuck described it, a rotten contest that singularly fails to elevate the spirit.
Getting back to my attempt to write this post yesterday, I had stopped doing so because i did not want my partisan angst to color my judgment and evaluation. But after the events of last night, with Mr Ricky Ponting projecting himself as the paragon of truth and virtue and Harbhajan getting banned for three matches, on the basis of dodgy evidence, the time has come to call a spade a spade and objectivity be damned in the process!
That we lost the match is not the irksome part of the whole affair. There have been other losses, and even against lesser teams, which have hurt more. That the umpires were incompetent does not also suffice to explain the bad taste in the mouth. An ex-soccer referee, whom Bob Willis had described in 2005 itself as "past his sell-by date", could not have been expected to perform much better. But what did irk and what did contribute to the bad taste (and not just in Indian mouths) was the attitude displayed by the Australian team during and more importantly after the match.
The Aussies, led by Mr Ricky Ponting and ably supported by other sentinels of fairness and integrity like Mr Michael Clarke and Mr. Michael Slater, have always maintained that there is a difference in circumstances when a batsman does or does not walk after clearly nicking the ball and when he is asked as to the legality or otherwise of a catch. The question is what is that difference? Are they really two different beasts? The Aussies themselves used the 'Repeat Offender' theory against Harbhajan in the hearing and what is good for the Goose should be good for the Kangaroo too!
If a player has not displayed 'integrity' in one situation there should be an automatic presumption against that same player doing so in another situation, especially one in which the balance of the match hangs. Mr Michael Clarke, after dropping a catch off the same batsman just moments before, would hardly be expected to claim anything other than the catch was clean. And added to that his brazen attitude after being caught at slip, where the ball was about a foot of the ground, had not exactly painted him in glorious hues of integrity. Repeat offenders seldom are! Further, Mr. Ricky Ponting would have us believe that in his refusal to claim a catch off Rahul Dravid in the first innings of the match he has set an example and has shown how fairly he plays his cricket. But Mr. Ponting would do well to accept that fairness and integrity are creatures of circumstance. Anyone can be gracious when the match is in control and the batsman is one who is struggling, out of form and low on confidence as Dravid was. It is an entirely different matter when the outcome of the match is in doubt and you are jostling for any advantage by means fair or foul. It is then that character comes to the fore and it is here that you have been found wanting Mr. Ponting.
Mr. Ponting claimed a catch which, leaving aside whether there was a nick or not, was not even completed and was grassed. This the whole world saw but when he was asked about it, Mr. Ponting had the unashamed gall to merely say that “If you're actually questioning my integrity in the game, then you shouldn't be standing there”!! Mr. Ponting, you have been asked a question and you will kindly answer the question directly and not make tangential comments. For a start, you must stand off the moral high ground before daring to tell others where they must or must not be standing! Cheats must not issue directions Mr. Ponting.
And it is also high time that Mr. Adam Gilchrist stopped projecting himself as the ‘Conscience of Cricket Australia’. Walking, after nicking the ball, when the umpire will anyways give him out and when his team is anyways in a good position, is not the sign of the saint which he would like the world to believe it is. Saints, or at least anyone who has played the game, know the difference between the sound created by the ball hitting wood and the ball hitting fabric pads. To take a chance and appeal when the sound was produced by Dravids’ pads was an instinctive human reaction and Mr Gilchrist acted impulsively and humanly. To take this chance was further understandable considering all that had passed before in terms of quality of umpiring. But henceforth Mr. Gilchrist we do not want to hear anything from you about integrity or anything more about the piece of fiction, co-authored by you and Mr. Steve Waugh, called the ‘Spirit of Cricket’. And obviously no images of saints need be painted in the future.
The pièce de résistance of the entire sordid affair was reserved for the last with Harbhajan getting banned for three tests. The basis of this ‘conviction’ was the fact that he was allegedly a repeat offender with something similar having happened in India some time back. There could not have been any other basis for the finding against Harbhajan, the rest of the ‘evidence’ being purely circumstantial and uncorroborated and consisting primarily of Mr. Mike Procter having to believe one set of players over the other. If that be the case, where the foundational root for the finding was something which happened previously, the question needs to be asked that was the finding of the match referee restricted to what had happened on the field in Sydney or was it a case of meeting out punishment for something that had happened previously? To base a finding or to reach a conclusion on past behavior is to tread on unsafe waters because, if memory serves right, Mr Procter had previously in 1991 accused the Indians of ball tampering in Gwalior (http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2004/11/21/stories/2004112100660200.htm) and was also involved when Virender Sehwag was banned for a match in 2002 in South Africa. To ask a person, who has always believed the Indians of being less than honest, to now decide on a similar issue, is a bit like asking a wolf to guard the sheep. Maybe it is unfair to state this about Mr. Procter, but that is the problem with going back into precedents- the line to stop cannot always be drawn. And to carry forward the animal analogies, nothing better could have been expected from a ‘Kangaroo Court’ where the issue is regarding a ‘Monkey’!!
What stood out in this entire farce and what will stay in my memory is the image of a tired man, who has just given everything he had inside him to try and save the match, lost it for reasons beyond his control and still found it within him to display grace and dignity. The sight of Anil Kumble, when he was speaking after the match, left a lump in my throat. His heavy baritone and measured words could not conceal the hurt and frustration in his eyes. It was a moment where lesser men might have been forgiven for indulging in rabble rousing, but all Kumble had to offer by way of damning indictment was the line that “only one team was playing with the spirit of the game, that's all I can say”. We are proud of you Anil and we are proud of your boys. That is all I can say.
Getting back to my attempt to write this post yesterday, I had stopped doing so because i did not want my partisan angst to color my judgment and evaluation. But after the events of last night, with Mr Ricky Ponting projecting himself as the paragon of truth and virtue and Harbhajan getting banned for three matches, on the basis of dodgy evidence, the time has come to call a spade a spade and objectivity be damned in the process!
That we lost the match is not the irksome part of the whole affair. There have been other losses, and even against lesser teams, which have hurt more. That the umpires were incompetent does not also suffice to explain the bad taste in the mouth. An ex-soccer referee, whom Bob Willis had described in 2005 itself as "past his sell-by date", could not have been expected to perform much better. But what did irk and what did contribute to the bad taste (and not just in Indian mouths) was the attitude displayed by the Australian team during and more importantly after the match.
The Aussies, led by Mr Ricky Ponting and ably supported by other sentinels of fairness and integrity like Mr Michael Clarke and Mr. Michael Slater, have always maintained that there is a difference in circumstances when a batsman does or does not walk after clearly nicking the ball and when he is asked as to the legality or otherwise of a catch. The question is what is that difference? Are they really two different beasts? The Aussies themselves used the 'Repeat Offender' theory against Harbhajan in the hearing and what is good for the Goose should be good for the Kangaroo too!
If a player has not displayed 'integrity' in one situation there should be an automatic presumption against that same player doing so in another situation, especially one in which the balance of the match hangs. Mr Michael Clarke, after dropping a catch off the same batsman just moments before, would hardly be expected to claim anything other than the catch was clean. And added to that his brazen attitude after being caught at slip, where the ball was about a foot of the ground, had not exactly painted him in glorious hues of integrity. Repeat offenders seldom are! Further, Mr. Ricky Ponting would have us believe that in his refusal to claim a catch off Rahul Dravid in the first innings of the match he has set an example and has shown how fairly he plays his cricket. But Mr. Ponting would do well to accept that fairness and integrity are creatures of circumstance. Anyone can be gracious when the match is in control and the batsman is one who is struggling, out of form and low on confidence as Dravid was. It is an entirely different matter when the outcome of the match is in doubt and you are jostling for any advantage by means fair or foul. It is then that character comes to the fore and it is here that you have been found wanting Mr. Ponting.
Mr. Ponting claimed a catch which, leaving aside whether there was a nick or not, was not even completed and was grassed. This the whole world saw but when he was asked about it, Mr. Ponting had the unashamed gall to merely say that “If you're actually questioning my integrity in the game, then you shouldn't be standing there”!! Mr. Ponting, you have been asked a question and you will kindly answer the question directly and not make tangential comments. For a start, you must stand off the moral high ground before daring to tell others where they must or must not be standing! Cheats must not issue directions Mr. Ponting.
And it is also high time that Mr. Adam Gilchrist stopped projecting himself as the ‘Conscience of Cricket Australia’. Walking, after nicking the ball, when the umpire will anyways give him out and when his team is anyways in a good position, is not the sign of the saint which he would like the world to believe it is. Saints, or at least anyone who has played the game, know the difference between the sound created by the ball hitting wood and the ball hitting fabric pads. To take a chance and appeal when the sound was produced by Dravids’ pads was an instinctive human reaction and Mr Gilchrist acted impulsively and humanly. To take this chance was further understandable considering all that had passed before in terms of quality of umpiring. But henceforth Mr. Gilchrist we do not want to hear anything from you about integrity or anything more about the piece of fiction, co-authored by you and Mr. Steve Waugh, called the ‘Spirit of Cricket’. And obviously no images of saints need be painted in the future.
The pièce de résistance of the entire sordid affair was reserved for the last with Harbhajan getting banned for three tests. The basis of this ‘conviction’ was the fact that he was allegedly a repeat offender with something similar having happened in India some time back. There could not have been any other basis for the finding against Harbhajan, the rest of the ‘evidence’ being purely circumstantial and uncorroborated and consisting primarily of Mr. Mike Procter having to believe one set of players over the other. If that be the case, where the foundational root for the finding was something which happened previously, the question needs to be asked that was the finding of the match referee restricted to what had happened on the field in Sydney or was it a case of meeting out punishment for something that had happened previously? To base a finding or to reach a conclusion on past behavior is to tread on unsafe waters because, if memory serves right, Mr Procter had previously in 1991 accused the Indians of ball tampering in Gwalior (http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2004/11/21/stories/2004112100660200.htm) and was also involved when Virender Sehwag was banned for a match in 2002 in South Africa. To ask a person, who has always believed the Indians of being less than honest, to now decide on a similar issue, is a bit like asking a wolf to guard the sheep. Maybe it is unfair to state this about Mr. Procter, but that is the problem with going back into precedents- the line to stop cannot always be drawn. And to carry forward the animal analogies, nothing better could have been expected from a ‘Kangaroo Court’ where the issue is regarding a ‘Monkey’!!
What stood out in this entire farce and what will stay in my memory is the image of a tired man, who has just given everything he had inside him to try and save the match, lost it for reasons beyond his control and still found it within him to display grace and dignity. The sight of Anil Kumble, when he was speaking after the match, left a lump in my throat. His heavy baritone and measured words could not conceal the hurt and frustration in his eyes. It was a moment where lesser men might have been forgiven for indulging in rabble rousing, but all Kumble had to offer by way of damning indictment was the line that “only one team was playing with the spirit of the game, that's all I can say”. We are proud of you Anil and we are proud of your boys. That is all I can say.
