Harbhajan Singh’s exoneration for his alleged “monkey” comment towards Andrew Symonds has been hailed as a victory for justice in India, but the decision has incensed Australia’s cricketers, who believe their board has caved in to overwhelming pressure from the game’s financial superpower.

In a front-page article in Wednesday’s Sydney Morning Herald, an unnamed Australian cricketer has hit out at the decision, which was only reached after Cricket Australia persuaded their five players at the hearing to downgrade their charge against Harbhajan from racism to abusive language. Instead of being banned for three Tests as per the original verdict, he was fined 50% of his match fee.

“The thing that pisses us off is that it shows how much power India has,” the anonymous contracted player told the paper. “The Aussie guys aren’t going to make it [the accusation] up. The players are frustrated because this shows how much influence India has, because of the wealth they generate. Money talks.”

In what the paper described as a “brazen act of provocation”, the Indian board chartered a plane to whisk their one-day squad from Melbourne – the venue for Friday’s Twenty20 fixture – to Adelaide, so that they could fly home to India if the charges against Harbhajan were not dropped. The move was described by MV Sridhar, the team’s assistant manager, as a “show of solidarity”.

Friday’s match alone – the curtain-raiser for the lucrative CB Series – is expected to attract a crowd in excess of 90,000, and Cricket Australia, fearing the loss of millions of dollars in TV rights, sponsorship and gate takings, opted not to call India’s bluff. It was also believed to be under pressure from broadcasters who could have sued had the series been abandoned. The Australian reported the players had an often fiery meeting with Cricket Australia officials during the fourth Test and it was agreed the charge would be lowered if Harbhajan apologised.

An Indian pull-out would have threatened Sri Lanka’s participation in the CB Series as well. Arjuna Ranatunga, the chairman of Sri Lanka Cricket, and other senior board officials told the Sydney Morning Herald earlier that the board was keeping an eye on the developments in the hearing before deciding whether to commit to the tour or not.

The issue was resolved late on Tuesday night, when Cricket Australia and the BCCI issued a joint statement, saying Symonds and Harbhajan had “resolved” the issue and that both captains were also “satisfied with the outcome”.

Australia’s unofficial opinion, however, is less placatory. The team maintain that Harbhajan abused Symonds both in Sydney and three months earlier during an ill-tempered one-day series in India. In audio evidence supplied by Channel 9 – and played before the appeals commissioner, Justice John Hansen – Matthew Hayden is heard remonstrating with Harbhajan. “You’ve got a witness now, champ,” says Hayden. “It’s racial vilification, mate. It’s a shit word and you know it.”

Harbhajan can be heard protesting that Symonds started the verbals, but the actual word is inaudible on the tapes. “Ultimately, truth has prevailed,” said the BCCI vice-president, Rajiv Shukla. “India has always stood against racism. Cricket is the victor in all this.”

Ranatunga, a former Sri Lankan captain, called for a ban on sledging and hoped the Australians would learn their lessons from this controversy.

“Australia have had these issues with some touring sides,” Ranatunga told Reuters. “History shows whenever they get it back, they struggle. Sometimes they also need to learn a lesson. I’m a great believer they should stop all shouting in the grounds.”

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THE contrast could not be more stark. At the very venue they reclaimed the Ashes last summer, the Australians yesterday witnessed the end of their record-equalling 16-Test winning sequence, though not before an enthralling late-innings fightback. [Alex Brown for Sydney Morning Herald]

I found this interesting article on Fox Sports.

WELCOME to the future, Australian cricket fans. Welcome to a world where your team will remain among the best sides in the world but will have to work like drover’s dogs to subdue their closest rivals.

We have seen the end of a golden era and will have to get used to the occasional silver and bronze medal against teams ready to answer our best sledges.

The fortress was attacked in Sydney and the barricades finally fell in Perth.

The post Warne-McGrath adjustment which had to happen has finally kicked. We have learned that Phil Jaques is not Justin Langer, that Shaun Tait is not yet Jason Gillespie, that Shane Warne is irreplaceable and that if you take Matthew Hayden out of the team it hurts everywhere.

The most challenging era of Ricky Ponting’s captaincy starts this morning.

How Allan Border managed to average 50 despite a decade’s worth of the type of pressure that has engulfed Ponting this series defies belief.

We have also learned that Australian batsmen who skated along like mini-Bradman when their side was crushing the world can be vulnerable when put under pressure.

Any Australian batsman who averages 50 over the next four or five years will have earned it.

As Steve Waugh says, there is no need for Australian fans to get too worried. They will continue to be among the world leaders and there will be no slide into the abyss which was home to Australian teams of the mid-1980s.

It’s just that they will find it harder to win.

Even as Australia despairs, world cricket is rejoicing at the discovery of a team who not only do not fear Australia but actually fancy their chances against them.

No praise is high enough for an India side whose entire pace attack is younger than Tait.

Australia is being threatened by a new breed of Indian, whose confidence was embodied by a gesture from young quick Irfan Pathan, when he held his hand up to his ear to the crowd after taking the ninth wicket. India’s win will send waves of delight and anticipation across the cricket world. If Australia can falter against India in Perth they can falter anywhere. This is an extraordinary result.

Australia will probably win this series but Shane Warne was right. This is no time to be arrogant.

India, without their top three fast bowlers, deserve to be rejoicing.

The potential of their young fast bowler Ishant Sharma is limitless.

Sharma’s harassment of Ricky Ponting at the WACA was the best spell of fast bowling Australians have faced since the 2005 Ashes tour when Andrew Flintoff was making the ball swing like a soap bubble.

It takes a great spell to contain Ponting; it takes a freakish one to make him look as if he is batting with a cricket stump.

His arrival is great news for a world cricket scene desperately seeking some new fast bowling heroes.

He has only been playing serious cricket for five years. A great career beckons for him if his drain-pipe physique can be kept in one piece.

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Never termed a classical leg-spinner (primarily because he is not a huge turner of the ball) in the real sense of the word, Anil has proved in his 16 long years in international cricket, that his style was equally effective. With a clever mix of top-spinners, googlies, leg-breaks, flight and a variation of pace, he has outwitted many a batsman. Facing a vary tall spinner, hurling deliveries at short of medium-pace, with every ball on target, can be a very daunting task.

Anil Kumble has some unique achievements in his illustrious career that one can only dream of. Anil Kumble is the only second bowlers in the history of test cricket who could take 10 wickets in a test innings. In a test match against Pakistan in 1999, Anil Kumble took all of the 10 wickets of Pakistan’s second innings leading India to win the test and level the series. After English spinner Jim Laker, Anil Kumble is the second person who has this distinction in his career. 

Recently, Anil Kumble got his maiden test century in the recent test series against England. Scoring 110 not out at his 118th Test and 151st innings, Anil Kumble took the highest number of tests to get his first test century. Actually, both his test century and test captaincy have come to him surprisingly. Even he could not think off getting a century in test cricket and test captaincy at the age of 37. He handled the matter agressively after the racial controversy in Sydney and is now considered to be the toughest man in Indian Cricket at the moment. 

With a down to earth personality, this leg spinner is always a respected person both on and off the field. From the umpires to opposition players, almost everybody knows him a solid gentleman.

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Viren Rasquinha is one of those few, who lived that dream of playing Indian Hockey Team and made a great mark on International Arena. He has cited personal reasons for his retirement. He i snow joining International School of Business, Hyderabad for pursuing MBA. “I really do want to give my MBA a serious shot. And since hockey exhausts a lot of time and energy, it wouldn’t be possible to continue both simultaneously. That’s why I have decided to call it quits from international hockey,” the midfielder said.

Rasquinha, made his international debut in May 2002 at a four-nation tournament in Adelaide. He rapidly emerged as one of India’s top midfielders and also captained the team briefly. Rasquinha represented India at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the World Cup in 2006; he was part of the team that won the junior World Cup in 2001 and honoured with the Arjuna award for the year 2005.

Viren is an epitome of the new age Indian sportsman, a person who combines academic excellence with sporting brilliance, no wonder that the influential TIMES OF INDIA called him a “a role model for the young. He once said that “We have to learn to be a ruthless team. When the opposition is down, we have to finish them. No mercy. There has been an attitude change in the Indian team. We want to beat the opposition, we are not happy with a draw anymore. Today, other teams are looking at this Indian team with a lot of respect and fear”. This attitude of Viren made him the poster boy of Indian Hockey. His retirement has come as a blow for India’s chances in Olympics later this year. He should have been on the plane to Doha and also to Beijing. For those who have conspired to sack him, the blood on their hands will not be wiped so easily. Whatever be the reason for his retirement personal or professional i wish him all the success for his future endeavours.

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So the “good” old dog is barking again.

Chappell surely has a nuisance value. To be honest, it’s quite tempting to blame him for everything that has been going wrong around the world. The idiot is saying that he was racially abused and has accused BCCI of cover-up. According to him, he got and “old” and “flawed” team for the World Cup 2007 and similar crap.

Let me tell you that I am a staunch supporter of Indian Cricket and won’t accept any illogical and personal abuses towards our team. Chappell’s two-year stint with Team India was more about mudslinging and muckraking than managing the side. Greg Chappell’s time as the coach of the Indian cricket team will always be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

The following have been his “contributions” to the team:

• Due to excessive experimentation, he almost spoiled the careers of Sehwag, Kaif & Pathan.
• The master who got a job for him at a handsome salary of Rs 90 lacs and incentives was shown door out of the team and was told that “he is physically and mentally unfit to lead and values finances more than anything“.
• He showed the doors to Zaheer, Balaji & Nehra on the grounds that they were unfit and were selfish and never played as team men.
• He converted Pathan (once compared with Wasim Akram) from a pace-producing swing blowler to a mediocre medium fast bowler with a bowling speed of 120/122 kmph on the pretext of making an all rounder.

As a result, the team which had woven itself up into a cohesive unit over the period was broken into pieces.

He is an unscrupulous, dishonest person; a scoundrel to say the least because he never accepted his follies while his tenure as Indian Coach. He was in India to hog some limelight and nothing else. It was evident from the way he managed the team. His doctrine of “perform or perish” ensured that team is torn apart. He made headlines for silly reasons such as showing the middle finger in Kolkata, commenting on Parliamentarians that “the parliamentarians were paid to hurl accusations at the coach because the team was losing”, etc.

Now that the Indian team is doing well again, it seems he just cannot digest this fact and advances made by India recently in the cricketing arena. What a timing to hog the limelight yet again. India were on the verge of clinching the series against arch-rivals Pakistan, when his stupid statements started to appear in the media. Glorifying the magnanimous Greg Chappell, the Australian newspaper Herald Sun says

“Despite the disillusionment and the many frustrations, he is still trying to help a nation in which cricket is treated like a religion”

A big favour indeed. Oh! What will India do without you Mr Greg Chappell?
If the victim Mr. Greg Chappell is so disheartened by this nation of “old, selfish and racists”, why is it that he has come back to this country? Why has he landed himself a job with Rajasthan Cricket Academy? The person who gave him this job is Lalit Modi, the Vice-President of BCCI. Why is he employed with somebody party to a cover-up?

Chappell says he didn’t get the team he wanted for the 2007 World Cup. Is Chappell saying he would have won the Cup with Suresh Raina, Venugopal Rao and other such 19-year-olds replacing Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and the other “seniors”?

As for the comment that the team for the 2007 World Cup was “old” and “flawed” and got the result it deserved, it begs the question: did Team India get the coach it deserved?

Greg Chappell is a shirker and he needs to realize that he was an abject failure as a coach and he conducted himself miserably. And one is so prone to hearing lies from this person, that it is hard to believe that he is speaking the truth this time around.

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Charlesworth will be directing the technical matters of both men’s and women’s national teams, senior and juniors included. This has created a furore between the two federations. The FIH hopes to resurrect the Indian game to its former glory. The FIH has itself taken an initiative to revive the field hockey in India, while authorities in the country are doing nothing.

Charlesworth has time and again made no secret of his desire to coach India. He may not have worked too much with a men’s team, but his grasp of the game and his experience gives rise to legitimate hopes that things can change for the better. Indian hockey needs inputs and guidance from professionals like Charlesworth to put in place a system, which would aim to provide a success mantra.

India’s high performance team preparation, all said and done, has a long way to go. Both men and women federations lack the vision and professionalism that this sport demands. Charlesworth is the most suited person for the position. Our hockey definitely needs his services. He is a person of repute, with hockey in his blood. His performance as a player and as a coach is of a very high standard. Also he is a very close follower of Indian hockey.

IHF committed a blunder in the past by turning down his offer to take up the coaching of Indian team. But now, all one can say is that it is better late than never. The think tank of IHF should be wise enough to utilise his services, for a much longer stint. Charlesworth has already said that you cannot prepare a team within a year. It is a time taking procedure. And he is very true.

The government of India should also step in and, in the larger perspective of game, should sack KPS Gill from his ‘lifetime’ presidentship.

What is wrong with Indian hockey is what is wrong with India in general. Bad administration, corrupt officials, unmotivated people, individuals caring more about themselves than the team, indiscipline and most importantly, no concrete plan to make things better. There is an urgent need for a total overhaul of the whole system to convert India into a champion side and this is the right time. After the commendable performance in Asia cup, it will be good if we can change the system now itself, so that it helps players to perform up to their potential.

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Dravid, the rock of Gibraltar of the middle order has seen his fortunes spiralling downwards from being the captain of the side to being a “drinks man” and now out of team. The last match of recently concluded Future Cup has marked only the second occasion of Dravid being left out of side since his debut. The selectors say that he has been “rested”, probably they don’t have courage to say that they have dropped Rahul. But this is unfair considering the past record of Dravid as an ODI batsman. He averages close to 40 in his last 15 games or so. The technically most correct batsman in the side and without whom we wouldn’t have won test matches and series abroad. There is something wrong within the board. There was shocking announcement by Dravid after England tour and decision to quit captaincy that took everyone by surprise. Then his body language in Australia series was questioned and he was not in his grooves as well. He was dropped for final ODI, challenger series and now for first two games against Pakistan.

You just cannot hope to regain form if you don’t spend time in the middle. But i will not be surprised if there is no hue or cry from the fans and media on this decision of the selection panel.

If Dravid was going to be dropped from the ODI then why wasn’t he given a chance in the ongoing Challenger Series like Sehwag, Kartik etc. Dravid as a cricketer had always been a true team man from opening in the tests to keeping in 2003 world cup. Dravid has always given the preference to team than himself. An underrated, low profile sportsman will hardly find any support from public as well. There will be no protests, no burning effigies, no rail block, no discussions in Parliament as was in the case of Ganguly and may be not even a prime time debate on any primary news channel.

The wall has finally collapsed and the way things are going on in Indian Cricket this might be the beginning of the end of Dravidian era.

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If a random trawl of the blogosphere is any indication, Indian players travelling to Australia this winter should expect to cop more than a bit of heat in retaliation for the repeated barracking of Andrew Symonds by Indian crowds. Crowds at the fifth and seventh one-dayers in Vadodara and Mumbai taunted Symonds — Australia’s best performer by far and player of the series — with repeated cries and gestures seen as being racist by the Aussie players and media (Hindustan Times dated 19/10/07)

Racism is not a subject that crops up much in India — when it does, it is usually to comment on how Indians are its victims, rather than its perpetrators. So it is with bemusement that we see Indian cricket fans being accused of racist behaviour against the visiting Australian team, specifically against one of its star players, Andrew Symonds. He has been the victim of jeering and ridicule and on Wednesday, five fans were detained by the police for indulging in such shameful activities at the Mumbai match.
This said, is one sensing a sort of snobbish put-on among both the Indian spectator crowd and some of our players? And, one wonders whether this snobbishness has anything to do with our new found status as a fast growing Asian economy and the richest cricketing country in the world? Are we coming across occasionally as the new upstarts in the block?
Racial abuse is prevalent across the sporting world of Australia, including its cricket grounds, says the report titled ‘ What’s the Score? A survey of cultural diversity and racism in Australian sport’ that was released recently by Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). On Australian cricket, the report points to “racial sledging” of South African cricketers who “were referred to as kaffirs by a small section of spectators” at Perth in December 2005. It says that cricketers from Sri Lanka were “subjected to calls of ‘black c——’ at Adelaide, and adds that an ICC security official was punched by spectators in Melbourne.
But we should not worry about the Australians — we need to set our house in order. The BCCI, which rules Indian cricket, will have to now look at the issue seriously to conform to international regulations. Remember, we owe a lot to Cricket for giving us lots of moments of pleasure when we were not what we were, not very long ago, and it is our duty to see that we do not take the game into disrepute in the country or even internationally. Vadodra and Mumbai, apologize or give up your right to watch cricket on the ground; BCCI take action more for the love of the game than for love of money.

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The way we react to results of cricket matches indicates whether we are just fans or lunatics or extremists. Our reaction has always been temperamental. No wonder Rahul Dravid quit as captain and Dhoni’s family declined to join in the celebrations!!!!!

THE RECEPTION accorded to the Indian Cricket Team after it won the Twenty20 World Cup was unbelievable. The team deserved it because we won an international trophy after a gap of 21 long years. But the huge number of fans that gathered in Mumbai to receive the team and the celebrations that followed across the country set me thinking – are we just cricket fans or lunatics or extremists? Are we the same people who performed the Indian team’s last rites after its debacle in the Caribbean? Are we the same people who stoned Dhoni’s house in Ranchi? Are we the same people who wrote Irfan Pathan off and gave the verdict that Virender Sehwag’s days as a cricketer were over? Yes we are. But in one fell swoop, everything is right again.

Dhoni can do nothing wrong now. Irfan is a star again and Harbhajan, a loser until a few weeks ago, has redeemed himself. Money and rewards are flowing in like anything. For three days, cricket hogged the limelight in the media, be it the print media or electronic media. Cricketers had become “God.”

But I wish that the youngsters did not become complacent after the frenzied welcome they received. A couple of more losses to Australia in the ongoing series will make them demons yet again. The clamour for sacking a few players will arise again and the same fans and media will lead the charge. Why? We are a nation of cricket extremists. No wonder Rahul Dravid quit as captain.

This schizophrenic behaviour on the part of the Indian fan is enough to dismantle the toughest wall. Dhoni’s family perhaps realised this and therefore declined to join in the celebrations outside their house. The crowd baying for their son’s blood a few months back was still fresh in their memory. So boys, we love you and your game. But just keep winning, alright. We can’t bear losses!

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