Every one seems to have an opinion on the Sydney test and its aftermath. Here’s mine.
Although quite a few people have expressed strong criticism of the behavior of the Australian team, I tend to disagree. Except for Ponting’s appeal for a clearly grounded catch and perhaps to a little extent the not walking of Michael Clark, I thought the overall behavior of the Australian team, on field, was nothing unusual and nothing to create so much rucksack about.
Some people seem to have concentrated on that and have dug up some videos of Indian players doing exactly the things that they are now criticizing the Australians for. For example this site shows videos of Dhoni claiming a clearly grounded catch (I am personally very disappointed with this), Harbhajan not walking after being clean bold and Sunil Gavaskar trying to stage a walk out with his fellow opener when he was adjudged, wrongly he thought, lbw. Although I can argue that these clippings are from a 20 year period and the Australians did all these in one match but that’s not the main point here. The main point here, according to me is the ending of all those clips. Pieterson was given out and had already walked but was recalled after the umpires saw the replay. Harbhajn Singh was eventually given out and he had to go and even Sunil Gavaskar had to go, without his opening partner. Nothing of this sort happened in Sydney. Symonds was not given out even after seeing the replay, Dravid and Ganguly were not recalled etc. That, I think, was the root of all the ill feeling. I don’t think Indians would have complained of Symonds not walking if he was given out, after watching the replay. I personally find nothing wrong with him not walking.
The funny thing is that people are suggesting that the removal of Mr. Bucknor was a bad thing, was done to please the BCCI and umpires also make mistakes etc. I read his statement where he says that he made only two mistakes from a record 35 appeals. I beg to differ on two counts. First there were about twelve wrong decisions that went against the Indians and one that went against the Aussies. That’s about thirteen wrong decisions not two (although not all were given by Mr. Bucknor). Secondly the two that he is talking about can’t be called average errors that the umpires can make, certainly not at this level. Anyone who makes these kind of errors, in any profession, should be immediately relieved of his duties, if any sort of standard is to be maintained.
Another interesting thing to come out that match is the Harbhajan Symonds racism issue. Harbhajan Singh, a coloured man, has been accused of using a white supremacist word that is derogatory to dark skinned people, against the only coloured guy in the Australian team. I fail to understand what one coloured guy can say to another coloured guy that will be racist.
By the way, as I am writing this, India is doing really well in Perth. The best way to come out on top the ghost of Sydney test would be a win at Perth. Just to show that India can beat Australia, at their strongest stronghold, the WACA, in a fairly played game. And Harbhajan is not the only bowler in the Indian team who can dismiss Ricky Ponting.
writing this post from my new laptop, running windows Vista. Which sounds blasphemous for a religiously Linux guy like me. But, surprising as it may sound, I like this new glitterati from the Microsoft stable. All it needs is some tweaking and its ready to rock.
