You said “This is the correct decision” - yet I don’t see any evidence provided by the Aussies. The only mention is that Mike Proctor was ’satisfied’. Fine way to carry out justice.

Overshadowed by this incident is also Ricky Ponting’s behavior at his dismissal in the first innings. Throwing your bat in the full view of the camera - boorish and childish to say the least. How did he, as a captain, escape from that one ?

u indians r just sooking cos you lost now that is bad sportsmanship, and how about when a whole crowd of indians were racist torwards symonds over in india.

That is disgraceful you indians should be ashamed

India may not have deserved a win but they certainly did not deserve to lose either. We can all understand the odd case where an umpire gets it wrong. When the umpires got it wrong time and again in this game and in all but one case it went against one side, that is not acceptable. It diminishes the contest between the sides too much.

If an umpire makes too many errors, human or otherwise, then they should be punished just like they would in any other line of work. The fact that Indians take the game more seriously than other nations should not be held against them either.

The sport will be better off when umpires know that they will be held accountable for their actions.

So Harbhajan Singh has been banned for three Tests after calling Andrew Symonds a monkey. This is the correct decision, but the fallout could be quite monstrously messy

Agreed totally on all counts. But from the time it was first announced that the umpires had been approaced by Ponting, and that they had gone to Mike Proctor, it has been said that the umpires had not heard anything. So it then came down to the word of the Aussies vs the word of the Indians.
Yes, we Indians are poor losers who complain when we lose. I can accept that accusation. It’s old news.
But what has Ponting done that prompted so much trust in him over the Indian’s? That’s exactly what I am waiting to hear from everyone who defends the decision to ban Harbhajan.

I must say that racial abuse should not be tolerated, but I hope this would apply to all including Australians as well. So far I have seen only the letter of the law applies only to the players from other countries who are not able to speak fluently and put across their opinion correctly due to lack of English knowledge.
Further the way that the umpires took decisions were very poor; when all decision that were unclear that could favour Australian were refered to the third umpire, while any decision that could favour the Indian were not refered. Example Ganguly’s catch by Clarke.
These must be rectfied so that any team can say they won fair and square!!!!!!

Not correct Warna. I remember Darren Lehmann being banned for about 5 games for his racist remarks against Sri Lanka a few years back. Racism was being stamped upon there as it is being stamped on here.

As for the communication gap you are referring to; the Indian players speak the English language as good as any other. They are not hard to understand nor do they have a problem articulating their thoughts. Your attitude is coming across as “Everyone is against us and we are the victims” and that is not so.

Australians respect and welcome Indian’s wholeheartedly. While we may have problems with certain individuals, as a whole we get behind the Indian team as one who is really able to challenge us. You need not look any further than the glorious ovation Tendulkar received for his final hundred on Sydney soil.

Tendulkar would have NEVER uttered racist remarks nor would he have danced along the edges of the controversy. Harbhajan Singh gets carried away and loses control. Now he will have to pay the consequences as Darren Lehmann (the Australian) once did.

@rusty: go back and watch the two incidents again (or for the first time): Ponting and Ganguly in their respective first innings. Ponting looks dismayed at the umpire, stands his ground for a while, fumes while walking back and as he enter the dressing room, throws his bat. And this is not the first instance Ponting has thrown tantrums like that.

Ganguly starts walking, and yes, does hit the pitch with the bat - I cannot say if it left a hole, but one would suppose that the 15 people on the field would notice something like that - more angry at himself than anyone else.

If you do want to point out boorish behavior from Indians, point out Yujraj’s who looked incredulously at the umpire when given out in I1. And I dont condone that either.

However, in the end, I thought ICC expected higher standards from the captains. And last time I checked, Ponting was the captain.

Aussies can dish out sledging no worries, but when it comes to them receiving it they are a bunch of girls going off crying to the match referee.
Has the aussie team forgotten the way they treated & rubbished teams of asian decent in the 80’s, in particular one arjuna ranatunga… i mean what is the 12th man audio commentary all about, sledging & having a go at players of differing decent.
I guess you can’t expect too much from convict inbred australian players!!!

People who make inane comments like ‘decisions even themselves out eventually’ are either terribly naive or hypocritical. Stop dismissing Indian grievances as petulant and overly sensitive, and judge the events on their own merit. I guess conclusions such as yours grow over a sense of “our kind against their kind” camaraderie that is damaging to cricket, and mutual trust. Will, you must try to grow out of such prejudices that cloud your view.

Dear bongopondit, I expect people to try not to be blinkered and hypocritical, be they Indian or Australian, so that we can build bridges and have good discussion. You are simply interpreting Ganguly and Ponting the way it suits your world view. Fine. It is easy to feel self- righteous, harder to admit error, bias and people not being perfect in the way we think they ought to be.

I don’t really care about nitpicking over who is more or less justified in acting in a bad-tempered manner - they are all experienced, privileged, international players - they are all at fault, even the ones who stand on the sidelines looking innocent, for creating this type of cricket culture. You can probably include the media, the fans and the management in this as well. We’re all part of it.

You might like to read Dileep Premachandran’s column for some enlightenment on how to view people and life more equanimity, at

http://timesonline.typepad.com/the_doosra/2008/01/burning-bridges.html#more

there is a lot of noise even though the end result is fair.
if u cannot bat for 72 overs, and if u give away six wickets to michael clarke and symonds, i dont think u should complain about fairplay and umpiring decisions. it is a question of commitment, pride, if ur number 9,10 and 11 cannot last 2 overs in international level u should not be expecting mark benson to come to the rescue. they do what they r supposed to do, how can u expect steve bucknor who has taken tendulkars scalp more often macgrath to be fair and competent? and why do u expect ricky ponting to have credibility and play fair. clarke will cheat. symonds is what he is, he will not evolve in a matter of months, forget years.

india has paid the price for fooling around with the batting order of both dravid and laxman to accomodate yuvraj singh who scores a duck in 3 balls in the final day of a test match, i mean if he had stayed on and scored the duck in 10 balls the match would have been drawn.

australia won this cricket match not by cheating. over 1600 runs were scored in 5 days, if this match was played between any other 2 countries it would have been a draw. only australia would have won this game and they win coz of their superior strike rate which gives their bowlers time to create pressure. on the first day from 160 for 6 they got to nearly 400 and its the efforts of brad hogg to be lauded. thats where they won the match.

india should get their opening pair right, be happy to be rid of harbhajan singh who has lost all his imagination, get a fast bowler and try to bowl out australia in the next fast pitch.

the more they stay with silly issues like brad hogg calling someone a bastard, they will be missing the woods for the trees. they should leave the monkey chatter to the monkeys who r doing it very well indeed.

i hope 2 ridiculous incidents from in this match do not set precedence - an umpire conferring with the fielding side captain prior to giving decisions! and the match referees access to divine knowledge in the absence of voice recordings and umpires statements.

Everyone has a point to make and tries to justify it by citing examples. The incidents in the 2nd test clearly goes against the sportsmanship of the game, lead by the aussie captain himself. He himself could see how seriously he was going to loose the game and thus played the dirty one-upmanship. Clearly everyone could see that the umpires colluded for the loss to indians. What in the world prompted the Mark Benson to ask Pointing if the catch was clean, when you have fellow umpire with you on the field and most of all when you have the third umpire for dealing with such situations? The umpires did an harakiri!!!. As everyone could see Indians were in a good position to atleast draw the game inspite of everything on the field and off it going unfavourably againt the team. Aussies doesn’t deserve this win! Couldn’t Aussie team’s cricketing skills have won them this game??

Will: In my view there are some fishy things happening here.

i) Mike Procter has said that he has no doubt that Bhajji used the word monkey and hence banned Bhajji for 3 games. Can we check all the evidence that he has?

ii) ICC has a code of conduct and the Level 2: “using abusive language directed towards a player, spectator or umpire” merits a ban of 1 test. If Bhajji is banned surely Hogg should now also be banned for 1 test. More so, there’s a Level 1 which states that any use of abusive language merits a fine of 0-50% of match fee. Without doubt one can establish that Michael Clarke used abusive language after completing the “catch” . Now, should Indians report that as well?

iii) The Aussies have been sledging even after the conduct has been established and no Indian has reported their abusive language to the match refree, why did they have to do it then?

iv) And come to think of it does the word “monkey” merit a 3-match ban and the word “m…..f….r” merit just 1?

v) The Aussies have a reputation of manipulating the umpires and Bucknor has a history of being against the Indians (do you even remember that he mimicked RD after the ball tampering controversy?). Indians had already requested the ICC to not appoint Bucknor but the ICC never listened. And add to that the Aussie media writing baseless and pathetic articles against the Indian team. Why should the Indian team not feel that they are being targeted?

We too have won & lost a good number of matches because of poor umpiring but we have only complained against Bucknor, and never made a big deal about it. But, ICC needs to acknowledge that Aussies put pressure on the umpires and that Bucknor has a bad history against us. And hence start using technology asap to eradicate the problem.

@Ottayan: Why go back so far…..wasn’t Symonds almost apoplectic at the Indian celebrations after 20/20 celebrations ?

BP,

I meant cheers.

@Rusty: Not sure what your point is here. Like I mentioned in two previous comments, I do not believe Indians are perfect, neither do I subscribe to the vitriol from sections of Indian fans, accusing Australia of conspiracy or what not. I live in Australia currently and have found it to be a wonderful country with great people.

Now, the reason I highlighted Ricky Ponting’s behavior is because (a) this is not the first time he has behaved in this manner when given out in recent times, and (b) as a captain he is supposed to be held to a higher standard (thats ICC talking not me). When Ganguly was the captain of the Indian team, there were many instances where he copped sentences from the Match Ref. due to similar offenses. So don’t you see some double standards here ?

Btw, I totally agree with most of DP has said, especially his highlighting of Greg Baum’s article: ” ‘Really, this ought to have been sorted out on the field, between players, captains and umpires.” Sadly, such common sense isn’t very common at all. And while the jingoists and the hate-mongers have a field day trading abuses, those that love this great game can only watch and weep.’ ”

Also read Peter Roebucks excellent article in SMH.

Rusty,

Since when has Dileep Premachandran become an expert at how to view people and life with more equanimity?

well firstly u have tried to look at both perspectives…i appreciate that.
Abt Symonds….well frankly he was faking…he just got this monkey thing going for him.I n India noe of our most popular gods is a monkey….using monkey taunts is notso who decides and on what evidence? in us.Racism by Indians was never heard of….but always is in the news w.r.t australia.Frankly what is upsetting is if like to give then be ready for a mouthful otherwise u are a coward…and thats wht he is….CRICKET FOR US IS A RELIGION.
It was symods and pontings word against harbhajan and tendulkar. symonds is only twisting the law to his advantage…surely india will also hit back by twisting that law on racism by complaning abt Hogg.

Enough has been said about the umpiring and the Aussie attitude in the test series.

The important thing is that the rules should be the same for both the sides and they should be made explicit before the game starts.

So if Virender Sehwag is suspended in South Africa for appealing for a taking a catch which wasn’t then should Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke be. Or are the rules different for different sides.

If most sledging is OK but some terms are deemed racist therefore some forms of sledging are not acceptable while others are - then let the ICC publish the rule book of sledging - what sledging is OK and what is not, with illustrated examples, a dictionary etc. “Sledging for Dummies” or “Sledging - a Users Manual” are two possible titles for the tome.

For instance - it is apparently OK for Glenn McGrath to ask a West Indies batsman what a certain part of Brian Lara’s anatomy feels like because it was non racial macho Aussie thing to say – basically gutter level personal abuse is OK in the gentleman’s game but not anything to do with race. We in India need to be educated in the tradecraft - we are but beginners in the subject.

Or should action be taken against all forms of abuse.

For the record let me state calling someone a monkey does not have racist connotations in India – in fact a monkey is a revered animal in India and one of the major Indian Gods is the monkey God Hanuman. However that is no defense since calling a person of African descent a monkey does have racist connotations and carries with it offensive historical baggage relating to the way people of African origin were regarded by their white colonial masters whose descendants today are railing against racism (the very foundation of the colonial age was built on a notion of race superiority - ask the Tasmaninian Aborignes) and therefore this should not be done – but maybe many in India do not understand the sensitivity of the matter. Is there a cultural gap here.

The joke doing the rounds in India is that when an Australian child learns to say the word “Mother” for the first time the parents say “Two cheers. Junior has learnt half a word”. For the Australian team to complain about sledging and occupy the moral high ground on this issue is a bit thick.

I guess they were getting a taste of their own medicine in the World Cup 20-20 and in India and were perhaps suffering from some not inconsiderable indigestion as a consequence.

Harbhajan made a mistake if (and only if) he referred to Andrew Symonds as a monkey. Wrong choice of animal mate - you should have used a reference to some other noteworthy mammal to respond to Symonds’ abuse - swine or dog come to mind as possible candidates - they are pure insults and carry with them no racist overhead. For good measure add on “non-monkey”. After all you cannot possibly be called racist if you say someone is not a monkey. “You mother*%$#ing, snivelling, lilly-livered, non-monkey, son of a swine” logically ought be acceptable sledging in the ICC and Australian lexicon.

This error by Harbhajan (if he indeed called Symonds a monkey) gave the Aussies a handle to turn the tables on the Indians by raising the racism issue. The Indians need to learn from this and refine their sledging strategy. It needs to be more nuanced and must take into consideration the subtler shades of meaning of various insulting and abusive terms and what they mean in different cultural contexts - someone in the Indian camp needs to think this through. India needs a specialist sledging coach (anyone for Gregg Chappell for this position - after all he is Australian and should be good at it).

But be happy India - in colonial times it took the word of ten Indians to overturn the testimony of one white man. Today you need to have two white witnesses to overturn the testimony of one Indian.

The world is indeed getting more and more flat. Indians have been accepted as honorary whites - capable of racism against people of African origin, which was earlier the preseve of whites only.

Feels a bit odd though - white people accusing Indians of racism.

But have we heard the last of this.

We have a situation where a white match referee (from a country that till very recently practised the worst form of racism as state policy) takes the word of two white witnesses (who are not neutral) over that of one Indian witness (who is not neutral) and without any independent witness or corroborating evidence (no video, no audio, nothing heard by the umpires – can’t blame the umpires though they seem to be deaf as adders and blind as bats and just in case this is a racist slur I voluntarily ban myself from selection for the Indian team for the foreseeable future) bans an Indian player (who the white Australian captain finds himself incapable of playing and so will benefit from this ban, and it was this Australian captain who insisted that the racism charge be laid at Harbhajan’s doorstep).

Hmm. Food for thought perhaps

Bongo …i am fully with u on the fact that australia is a great palce and the people there are very nice……but 11 men in baggy green now for 10 years have been changing how the world thinks of australians.what does one conclude when an australian player defends sledging and unnessecay aggression as part of australian culture.in one swipe he changes our perception of australia.Also ure ex PM howard went overboard with the murali chucking comment. Australians like to believe they paly hard and by the rules….its just not possible.its not human.so what do u expect.there will be confrontation….its very sad

Not the biggest fan of Harbhajan personally, but if the bloke is being banned at least show him, his team and the public the evidence. If this is a case of he-said-this-but-you-said-that then it’s not good enough.

“There are already reports (from the never-really-to-be-trusted Press Trust of India)”

Yes because British media organizations are the beacons of credible journalism, eh?

Its impossible to handle the Aussies. They are experts in being offensive. Never liked their behaviour and now they take a moral high… what a joke.

“Is calling someone a monkey racist? Surely intent and context are all-important. I regularly and with much affection call my eight year old (white) daughter a cheeky monkey”

Oh come off it. Context is important but I assume your comment to your daughter is not motivated by her skin colour? Why is Symonds a monkey and not the other ten in the side?

Ponting was wrong to lodge the complaint but the one good thing to come out of it is that Australians can never again claim to be able to take it as well as dish it out. Can you ever imagine Ian Chappell or Allan Border running to the match referee? All Australians ought to be ashamed of Potning today, not for the disputed catches or bad sportsmanship. but for making them look like crybabies.

Calling monkey is racist? fine. But is it proved? What proofs ICC or ICC officials have to ban Harbhajan for 3 test matches? If ICC turns out to be wrong, what would they do? Why Sachin’s comments were overlooked? Could anybody answer these questions. Why ICC match refrees are used to fine and bann Indian/Shrilankan/Pakistani players where as Australians/Englishmen and South Africans are given benifit of doubt? ICC is proving to be the RACIST by taking actions agains little misdids that asians do. But they simply ignore the facts and words used by other players who seems to different than asian players. ICC please answer this. Your game is earning great popularity because we Indians love that game, don’t be under impression that we love your decisions.

the problem starts when you start classifying abuse. racial,personal,national,religious,etc. in ‘91 omar henry would have been delighted if someone abused his country!! abuse is abuse. period.no punishment for calling my wife a slut and a lengthy ban for calling me a monkey. seems hair-brained to me.
the question is not whether harbhajan really called symonds a monkey. it is whether there is any credible evidence to show that he did so. channel 9’s sensitive cameras picked up nothing. sachin told that bhajji didn’t. umpires too. we have only the words of the likes of clarke,symonds and punter -all seriously requiring a dose of “integrity” going by their attitude during just this test. listening to them was mike procter who had banned rashid latif for 5 matches for appealing for an illegal catch back in 2003 but did nothing in punter’s case now. how much more compromised can a hearing be? beat it “mites.”

who do you trust - Pointing or Tendulkar?

http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2008/jan/07sachin.htm

Give me Tendulkar any day…

Ricky Ponting’s captiency is a real stupid thing, we have ever seen in the history of cricket. If he still continues as an international player, it will be a big shame to Australian team.

The following actions are required:
1. The game should go on…..

2. Benson and Bucknor need to be replaced and penalized

3. Unproven allegation against harbhajan should be scrapped

4. Ricky Ponting needs to be replaced by somebody else as captain… he is not bigger than the game of cricket…

5. A thorough counselling to australian team about how to nurture and develop sporting behaviour on-field and off-field would help all other nation….

6. Media should bring down the visibility of australian players and resist from interviewing them indiscriminately…they are no talk show wizard and it is not very pleasant to hear them…