Hi.
We all know and have been witness to the so called historic 16th win for the Australian Cricket team who claim to have played the test in the spirit of the game. Well sadly, my views are not the same. From the time Symonds was given not out for being stumped by Dhoni the entire face of the match changed dramatically. The ball was always in the court of the Australians as they had the umpires bowling, batting and fielding for them. What on earth prompted umpire Mark Benson to ask the Australian captain Ricky Ponting if the catch was clearly taken by Micheal Clarke in the slips at a point where one wrong judgement could turn the match in favour of either of the team.
There were as many as 8 judgements which were wrongly adjudicated by the umpires in that HISTORIC test match out of which 7 were against the Indian interests. Is this expected from umpires officiating in an international match? To err is human we all know, but to repeat those mistakes is foolishness and thats what Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson have proved to be outright.
Symonds being given not out stumped by the keeper, Jaffer being bowled of a no-ball, Ganguly's dubious catch in the slips, Rahul Dravid's dismissal all contributed to India losing the match in the last 7 balls of the test match. And if anyone is to be blamed it has to be the umpires. I believe the BCCI was a bit too late to lodge a complaint against the umpires.
Harbhajan Singh was charged with racial abuse of a player on the field. Well let me first ask who gave Symonds the right to go and instigate the fight in the first place when virtually nothing much was happening between Brett Lee and Hrabhajan. Is he trying to say that Brett Lee cannot fend for himself in anyway? Why was Symonds not charged with any offenses? Why did the match referee hold Harbhajan Singh guilty when he himself admitted that there was no full proof evidence against the bowler? Is this not racism against the Indians? I would say a big "YES" and its not the first time that we are facing this issue. The Asian sub continental countries have always faced the wrath of the ICC match referees and other officials for various offenses like slow over rate, discipline issues etc while at the same time teams like England and Australia have been let off with warnings. Is it not time we get up and do something for our rights?
Surprisingly, India has now dropped the charges racial abuse against Australian bowler Brad Hogg. What is Mr Anil Kumble trying to say by this generous act? DO you lack self respect? If not for yourself, atleast they should have thought about Indians back home and in other parts of the world who face these situations many a times. What has India achieved by dropping the charges against Brad Hogg? Virtually nothing but just some b******t praise from all corners of the world who in their minds may well be laughing at the lack luster attitude of the Indian team.
I believe its time for the men in blues to just get back home and in their place send a team of eunuchs who atleast would not take any abuse at themselves like the way these guys have done. If Brad Hogg was really guilty of racial abuse, it was the teams duty to get him the suspended for the required number of tests. Surprisingly, the man who has withdrawn the charges against Hogg (Kumble) is supposed to be the onen whom he racially abused. Hail captain courageous.
Many would say I'm wrong to think the way I have expressed my thoughts but if you think so let me remind you that its the same forgiving attitude that has cost us many battles, unwanted incidents and not to forget our pessimist attitude on the field on most occasions. We still do not have a "Never say Die" attitude, we do not like to fight till the end and we do not let others fight for ourselves. No wonder its been 24 years and 7 world cups later we still have not won the World Champion's tag in the ODI format.
Vibbs
15th January 2008
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I think I agree with parts of what you say. Here is my take on the whole thing.
1. Umpiring was atrocious
Umpiring (with ICC not adopting technology as it should) is a judgment call and so I am ok with mistakes. I think even if they impacted India most of the time, they are and will be part of the game until they bring in more technology and I am fine with that. I had two problems with the umpiring though. First my problem is with ICC that it does not have any accountability built in for the umpires. If they make a mistake there is no record of that against their name and they do not have anything to lose for making mistakes. So the Symonds caught behind not given, Dravid given out caught when he was not, lbw decisions etc are all forgivable. You have to accept them and move on. But they are more of an ICC problem. One minor exception was the Bucknor decision to not refer the stumping to the 3rd umpire (I am ok with the firt reference where the 3rd umpire gave Symonds not out when he could have been out). So far with run-outs and stumpings being regularly referred to the 3rd umpire, we have had very few wrong decisions on that front and so this one was kind of an anomaly which I believe is because of ICC not mandating those things to be referred to the 3rd umpire. Bucknor I believe just took advantage of that fact and decided not to refer it back upstairs. The problem is Bucknor has been known to have a history of having more errors against India and so that leads me to speculate if that was a deliberate act on part of Bucknor. But given that I am just speculating I am fine with that part as well.
My problem is with the Ganguly decision - Benson is not sure if the catch was clean and instead of doing what the ICC mandates him to do, ask his fellow umpire if he saw the catch to be taken cleanly and if both are unsure refer it to the 3rd umpire. The ICC rules on umpiring are pretty clear on that part. When Benson chooses to deviate from a mandatory process and ask the opposing team captain who again is not the one who has taken the catch is simply wrong. So Benson not only makes the wrong decision due to that he also does it in a illegal fashion from the ICC rule book point of view. And there is no penalty on him for doing so and that I believe was the biggest error in umpiring in Sydney.
Rest of the umpiring errors were bad decisions and I guess merits a evaluation of how good these umpires are and should they be officiating at this level. But that is again the ICC not regulating the game right.
Conclusion: Umpiring was bad and I am glad they decided to dump Bucknor and Benson. Though I hate it that ICC does not take the stand that the umpires were making more mistakes than they should.
2. Racism allegations smell of racism themselves :-)
So here is where I kind of disagree with what you say. I think if Harbhajan called him "monkey" or a variant there of, he is wrong and he should be punished if he said that irrespective of what the provocation was. But again that was not proved especially because nobody except the people involved know what happened. So for Proctor to believe Symonds and party and not Harbhajan and party is injustice. This is a case of there is no conclusive evidence and so you cannot punish. Again if Symonds provoked Harbhajan he is not prohibited from doing that. So Symonds can say anything that is not racial and he is fine. Harbhajan cannot use a pre-classified racist term as a response. So the issue here is that Proctor used his biases to come to a decision or at least that is what it seems from the details that have come out so far in the media. Gavaskar aptly pointed out that it almost looks like Proctor took a white team's word to be better than a brown team's word. Again in the eyes of a just court Proctor would be guilty of wrong judgment and Harbhajan would be acquitted.
Hogg is a different matter. He abused and yes abuse is not allowed but it is by no means racist. So it is not the same charge as the Harbhajan charge. I actually thought it was pretty lame for the indian team to accuse Hogg after the harbhajan judgment - more like kids counter-complaining once they are under some accusation. So the hogg complaint should not have been made in the first place. And I think Kumble did the right thing in withdrawing the charge as it served two purposes.
1. We look gracious and not cry-babies (these mild abuses happen between adults and you dont go and complain for each such instance)
2. It also allowed Indian team to take the stand that Harbhajan did say something abusive but did not make a racist comment.
In essence, I guess the whole Hogg abuse was something we did not really get offended by but wanted to do tit-for-tat to get some leverage with the aussies. I think the whole idea was to make sure that people know that the Aussies do abuse on the field and that we Indians can claim offense but then we did not want to make that an issue as that would mean we also have to be as careful.
But that was foolish thinking of the indian think tank to go an accuse Hogg. I am glad they withdrew it and did not make Indians look like silly cry-babies.
So in summary, yes the game could have had a different outcome but I would not make that a big issue and move on. I am glad the umpires were replaced and am hoping Harbhajan is acquitted - but if he said it he better not repeat it.
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