All said & done, what a royal mess!!

It is very difficult to talk about the Sydney test between India & Australia without screaming out loud that We Was Robbed. But I am going to refrain from blaming everyone but the Indian team for the defeat.

It is also difficult to talk about the 3 issues i.e. the result of the Test, the Harbhajan-Symonds row & the refereeing cum umpiring standards, without one overlapping the other. Because I feel if one were to look at the 3 issues separately it helps to gain some perspective and gives an idea of what went wrong and what we can learn from it. So here is my attempt at looking at the events that transpired subjectively and the bodies involved.

India's defeat - India lost the Test and with it their hopes if defeating Australia which was very much possible had they secured a draw in Sydney. The follow-on result in Perth showed that hopes of winning the series were very much realistic. Life is about controlling the controllables and India failed to do that. The umpiring gaffes which hastened the result masked the deficiencies of the team. More on the umpires in a bit. Yes, they blundered big time but that is more a sign of an over all malaise. India's strategy of accommodating Yuvraj Singh was misguided from the very start. Added to that was opening with Dravid just when he was in desperate need of form. Leaving Sehwag aside was another tactical blunder which India payed for. Also the nth 2nd innings collapse exposed the batting line-up's vulnerability at batting to save a game. Batting out 2 sessions is not much to ask for from a line-up as decorated as India's. Also losing your last 4 wickets to honest trundlers like Symonds & Clarke is inexplicable. So one can argue that India are partly to blame for their defeat since they did not control the controllables.

Harbhajan-Symonds row - Whether Harbhajan called Symonds a 'monkey' or merely abused him as 'maa ki', only he knows deep down inside. Symonds & Ponting were well within their rights to report Harbhajan if they felt he racially abused Symonds. That Mike Proctor was not qualified to conduct the hearing and that his hearing was a farce is also a fact for which the ICC is squarely to be blamed. The ultimately fair verdict which was delivered by the Kiwi judge was very interesting to go through and I think the Aussies should understand the circumstances under which Harbhajan was cleared regardless of what was said. If a man's word, especially the victim's, was evidence enough, we would fall short of prisons in the world. Also one must discard the grandstanding by the BCCI and the so-called caving in by Cricket Australia and accept the verdict for what it is because it was delivered by a qualified man without prejudice. Symonds must tone down his on field behavior since he is quite a motor mouth on the field. And Harbhajan has to be taken aside by the Indian team management and warned that he is walking a disciplinary tightrope. One must not forget that he was still convicted of abusing a player regardless of the provocative circumstances.

The umpiring/refereeing standards - The ICC's excuse for continuing umpiring blunders is that they are humans and make mistakes like players. Except for one difference. Players pay for their mistakes with defeats and places in their sides. But it is the players and teams who are bearing the brunt of the umpires' mistakes! That is one system of accountability that I do not understand. Umpires are not being made accountable for their mistakes. We all love the human element in the game but let that human fallibility be limited to bowlers, batsmen & fielders. Let not an erroneous human decision made by someone not directly involved decide what is essentially a contest between bat & ball. The stakes are too high in sport today to let bad decisions be handed out without an effective referral or redressal system. The current trend of umpiring errors is exaggerated when one considers the technology that exposes the deficiencies ruthlessly and embarrassingly. More on umpiring in a future post but measures that can help curb the malaise include appeals (like those in tennis), clearer guidelines on empowering of umpires using technology, stricter selection criteria for umpires and a system of accountability.

I think we will all agree if the match referee is made defunct and the umpire be given disciplinary powers on the field. Should in case a hearing be conducted, let it be done by qualified people and not by some old timers killing time when they rather be sitting at home, commentating or writing syndicated columns.

Also a few words on the other parties involved in this unholy mess.

The players - I think player behaviour in cricket is at an all time low. The Aussies can get away with what they do because they keep winning. Anyone else who behaves the same way and then loses merely comes across as a sore loser. The ICC needs to clamp down on player behaviour which also includes unnecessary appealing which is a tactic willfully used by most sides. The likes of Ponting, Clarke, Harbhajan & Sreesanth are mighty fine cricketeers with talent, but they need to be reminded every now and then what they are out there for. The only way to beat the Aussies is not to match their verbal bravado but to play tactically & strategically aggressive cricket. Period. And you know what lets have the mics on all the time so atleast they will think twice before letting lose their lip. If the fielders are to be believed on touch & go catches, why shouldn't the batsman's word not be taken when he has edged an LBW which nobody has seen or heard? All players have an ulterior motive whether they like it or not, and that is to get the decision in their favour. So lets not start asking the pupils whether they would like to be detained in the playground or the candy shop!!

The BCCI - I wanted to label all the bodies i.e. BCCI, CA & ICC, together, but I think they all deserve to be castigated for their roles in this mess. The BCCI has not helped the team by having a ridiculous itinerary for the tour. They could have the team better prepared for the Melbourne Test with another practice game. It was only until Sydney that the batsman got into their groove. Their grandstanding and blackmailing in the light of the Harbhajan row was classless and graceless. They had the opportunity to take the moral high ground and blew it. Having all the money in the game does not give them the right to behave like the petulant kid and storm off the field at the drop of a hat. It also brings a responsibility of bettering the game at both domestic and international level. When was the last time they did something constructive for the game? Beats me! And if they did have a beef with Steve Bucknor, why was he not vetoed out at the beginning of the series? Despite knowing that he has a not so good history when it comes to the Indian team.

The ICC - How not to run an international sport? Look no further than the International Cricket Council. Cramped schedules, falling umpiring standards, impotent match referees, erratic player behaviour, the chargesheet is pretty long! They keep stumbling from one corner to another always being a shining beacon of incompetency & ineptitude.

And ofcourse the media & public - A lot of the Indian news channels seem to be living in a shell of their own. Before celebrating the 'victory of Indian national honour' let us remember that Harbhajan has a history of indiscipline, offences & he was still convicted of using abusive language. Also we should stop playing the victim card and accept that we are one of the most discriminative people and society in the world. Discrimination exists in our country on all levels, race, religion, caste, community & colour. So let us start facing ourselves before we start preaching secularism & equality to the world. Also, if Harbhajan actually called Symonds a monkey inspite of Symonds explaining to him why he finds it offending, then let us not defend Harbhajan by saying that monkeys are a revered species in India! Even monkeys would find that argument ridiculous. And let us not misguide all our national pride on cricket. Its only a sport. Their are many more things in our country to be equally proud and ashamed of. Many more things that both uphold and degrade our so-called 'national honour'.

All said & done, the Sydney Test bought out the worst in all the parties involved. It is a period where everyone has at some point guilty of acting against the spirit of sport. Its a chapter we would like to forget for a while and it was a shame that what was such a potentially terrific series was reduced to a sham. All said & done, it was a royal mess.