Blame the Aussie way if you may

“We play our game hard but fair” seems to be the tag-line of CA. Their administrators, national captain, players, ex-players all seem to repeat the same line in their defense after the Sydney disaster. Australia is the world champion cricket team of the past decade. Many of my friends and I are in awe of the amazing consistency they are able to maintain for more than 10 years. They have almost changed the definition of cricket that it is a game of uncertainties at least when Australia team is involved in it.

Right from our childhood we are taught to look at successful people and follow them to bring success in our careers. In school, we look up to the successful seniors and try to mimic them for our own accomplishments. Other than the national figures, who are like universal heroes every region has local heroes who people look up to for inspiration. After the television revolution, as a kid when you follow sports you try to mimic your heroes’ styles, their body language and their actions when you hit the ground in your backyard. Cricket is no different. Kids try to match the bowling styles of Murali, Kumble and Warne when they try to bowl spin or try to follow Sachin, Lara when they bat. Although India has many cricketing icons, which school kids try to follow, the national team has not been as successful as we want them to be. So, you can’t fault anybody if they look to the champion side Australia and try to do what they do to win games.

Here comes Australia’s responsibility as the champion side. So, other than their work ethic, what kids do try to learn is their “hard and fair way” of play which includes sledging. There is no doubt that guys like Sreesanth and Harbhajan would have tried to learn this hard way to gain the competitive edge in their age groups. Kids try to match them so much that a teen-ager like Parthiv Patel sledged a legend like Steve Waugh in his farewell test. And remember English is not our first language and especially now when players are coming from all corners of India they might be refining their English skills only after joining Team India. So, being provoked in the heat of a battle by players from the English speaking countries, the non-English speaking guys can utter the first word which comes into their mind irrespective of racial or non-racial relevance of the word. Remember, how Pakistani captain Shoaib Malik apologized to all the Muslims of the world after loosing the T20 world cup, when the winning team had a Muslim as their Man of the Match. Most of us believe that Malik had a slip of tongue especially talking in English which he is definitely uncomfortable with. Austarlia’s hard and fair way of play is responsible in creating sledgers like Sreesanth, Harbhajan and co. in the Indian team as this new generation of cricketers wants to match everything they get from opposition.

By all means you want to unsettle the opposition players in the field. But sledging is not the way. The champion team has great batsmen in its rank who can hit the bowlers out of park and bowlers who can easily take opposition wickets. Having said all that, I still believe that racism is not acceptable in any realm of society, forget about sports. Harbhajan deserves the harshest punishment if he has crossed the line. But for that to happen the match referee or the judge whoever it is has to have concrete proof before declaring the verdict. Because, racist is a very cruel tag to carry with for the rest of your life. But if the evidence does not come from the umpires or any audio or video recording of the match, then I’m sorry the Australian players’ words can’t be taken as evidence after we saw what happened on the field. Ricky Ponting definitely exploited the loophole in the verbal agreement he had with Anil Kumble before the series started regarding taking players’ word for disputed catches. What is shocking is that Ponting tried to scare an Indian journalist that he is honest even when there is clear video evidence of the ball touching the turf (unsuccessful appeal for Dhoni’s wicket). Same with MJ Clarke’s catch of Ganguly. Ponting is referring to his denial of Dravid’s catch in the first innings to justify his honesty. Do us a favor Mr. Ponting, please do not force your honesty on us. If the umpires would have referred your first innings claim to third umpire, that incident would anyway have been awarded as not out. You might be the captain of a champion side, but your side has no morale. You don’t need to look beyond Clarke’s dismissal in the second innings to understand their hard and fair game. Knowing Bucknor’s bad form in the match Mr. Clarke tried to take him for a ride even after edging to the first slip.

Sledging, mental disintegration or a crack at the opposition or whatever you want to call it, you are setting a wrong precedent as a champion side to follow. ICC must have a zero tolerance policy for sledging now onwards; otherwise storms like this will become regular occurrence. I won’t be surprised if it is not stopped here, teams will go on to have secret coaches for sledging as the game progresses.