Surprisingly delayed, but here come the effigies of the three doomed members of the Sydney Test: Ricky “boooo” Ponting; Steve “Edges” Bucknor. And Mark “give us a” Benson:
Here’s how to make your point. LOTS OF FLAMES AND FIRE AND BURNING THINGS:
I have to tip my hat to this one though. Inspired use of the roadside donkey:
All in all, a disgraceful turn of events. Let them abandon it and let them bugger off home. Just spoken to my Indian friend who diplomatically asked my opinions on it. I told him how India have dug themselves a hole, and continue to act as though Australia have nicked their dummy. He and his mates, all Indian, agree. I fear he and they are in the minority.
Get over it.
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I have a vision of a donkey in a stable while a nearby radio has the cricket on….
“Oh F***. Here come the effigies and signs….”
Indian fans can be really completely over the top. Cricket is taken wayyy too seriously sometimes. Normally I’d brush it off and say it’s part of the rich (and slightly mad) culture, but when it leaks out and the officials feel it too? There’s something wrong with Indian cricket, honestly. I can fully understand how inextricably it’s linked to politics and culture and all that, but trying to call off the tour, calling all Australians cheats and then victimising themselves? This has to stop somewhere.
“there is something wrong with Indian cricket, honestly”
Agree with you porridge. And that’s why the game of cricket survives mate
well chosen pics. don’t you have one with a bunch of indian with snakes aroun their necks using a buffalo for bucknor and an elephant for “jumbo” anil(the literal minds of these indians) crushing the buffalo? must have happened somewhere. at least in your peurile imagination i’m sure. come off it bud.
Have any of you seen the match? You are obviously in some distant land and making comments based on a highlights package. Thank God folks like you are a minority. The game was shown live here in NZ and public opinion here is overwhelmingly in favor of what the BCCI and the India team is doing. Consistently bad umpiring has to be dealt with. A fair trial is everybody’s right. Good on the Indian team and the India public to back their team to ensure this happens.
The trial did seem unfair but I wish that the Indian press would stop covering idiots burning effigies, it makes us moderate fans look stupid for defending India.
What the team should have done was to follow Kumble’s lead and make thinly veiled comments while ‘focusing on the cricket’ yada yada yada.
P.S. Does anyone else think that it’s easy to make money by opening up a professional effigies store in India? I haven’t yet thought of a name but effigies’R'us probably won’t catch on.
Great comments here, apart from Saint – about what you would expect from a Kiwi.
What I’m wondering is whether making and burning effigies of your enemies could be marketed as the new therapy?
Behind cricket, effigy burning is India’s most popular sport.
A few idiots burn effigies and the Indians should “bugger off”? fantastic. A player is accused of racisim based on words of individuals who have shown that they will lie to get a victory. By an official who disregarded the word of the only teammate on the field and believed all the opponents. Yeah tell people to get over it. That’s great. Are you auditioning to get a job with Murdoch?
Saint, honestly, wtf are you talking about?
You can’t blame the media for covering the effigy burning – makes a good story. Much of the Aussie press, and hell, even this blog is covering it
I have no love for these these moronic effigy burners (they were as likely to burn Yuvraj and Jaffer’s effigy if India lost this game without the umpiring errors) and sadly I also have to accept the fact that there is much wrong with Indian cricket and its supporters.
However, I can’t understand why the Indian team is expected to get on with it, when one of its players has been accused of racism without proof, and its just lost a very tightly contested game with the world champions while being at the receiving end of a number of startlingly dubious decisions. I think the suspension of the tour is too drastic and dont support it, but simply sitting quietly doesnt do anything either.
Finally I have to add that I notice a tendency in this blog to selectively highlight acts by Indian fans – be it effigy burning or the other extreme, over the top celebrations.
There is almost an implication that it is only the Indian fans that indulge in such silliness. Of course, its Will’s blog and his prerogative and all that, but why should we be deprived of wry commentary or amusing photos of other supporters ?
Everyone is completely nuts! Immature, self-righteous and totally self-absorbed!
In no particular order:
1. The Aussies in general, and Ponting in particular, are arrogant and rude, and act like they are bigger than the game. They are pompous, hypocritical and, for an Australian cricket fan, very embarassing. Carrying on like that is bad enough, but doing it after disparaging the Indians’ behaviour after the 2020 final is terrible. And not congratulating Kumble on a fantastic innings is some of the worst sportsmanship I can think of.
2. The same can be said of the BCCI — the umpiring hasn’t gone their way and they disagree with ICC match referee BUT instead of upholding the institutions of which they are a part they are undermining them, and throwing their weight around like a petulant bully. They are just as bad for the game as the Aussies.
3. The umpires are crap — they had no idea what was going on, and paved the way for all of this. Yes, India copped the bad decisions, and I think that they are within their right to ask that Benson and Bucknor don’t officiate in further tests, but leave it at that. All the rest of the hoo-hah is not the fault of the umpires. The players and institutions took it the extra step, and are the ones behaving like children (or monkeys or bastards or whatever).
4. The Indians’ behaviour has often been terrible too — Ganguly smashing his bat on the ground comes to mind as just one example. I would have been busted big time for doing that in junior cricket. (BTW, Sharma shaking Symonds’ was VERY GOOD sportsmanship — everyone should look and learn)
5. Yes, the effigies are stupid. But no more so than all the other rubbish going on.
6. And finally, the ICC — why on earth would you suspend someone for ‘racist’ comments and not immediately supply the evidence. Where is Proctor’s report, and why is the Australian’s word being taken over the Indians. There may (or may not) be a reason for this, but don’t leave us in the dark. I guess the ICC is not well known for it’s transparency!
Enough ranting for this morning
@ gringo….
finally someone has made sense of it all. well done dude.
Next time you see an Australian fan being anything other than a nerd covered in zinc or a drunken buffoon, feel free to post it bongopundit
go on Gringo, have another rant, It’s probably only your fourteenth for the day.
I love the way Indians keep saying how rude and arrogant Aussies are, while abusing us with every derogatory term right, left and centre. Are there any polite Indians to show us pompous, hypocritical and embarrassing boors, liars, cheaters and nerds (dont’ forget convicts!) how it’s done?
gonzzocricket – Obviously I am referring to comments in the original post and the post from porridge.
What the Indian fans do back home in India is interesting but irrelevant. What matters is what the authorities and the teams are doing. And I think they are spot on. Bucknor has the an appalling record in matches involving India (google that if you don’t believe me) and he has to go. Harbhajan’s trial is a travesty of justice and this issue is not going away until Proctor’s judgement is overruled.
India has the muscle to get a fair trial and I don’t grudge them for using it in this case. Good on gb for making his post as well.
Rusty – somewhere along the way, did you infer that I am Indian? I am also a boorish convict-nerd type, but as Peter Roebuck said this morning, “It is possible to love a country and not its cricket team”.
My point is that everyone* is acting like they are smoking crack — the Aussies are ugly, the BCCI are bullies, the umpires incompetant, the Indians like bad schoolboys, and ICC doing nothing. Everyone’s talking but saying nothing useful.
* Peter Roebuck included.
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.
Get a life, buggers.
Thank you, ICC.
I hope this FINISHES off the career of pretenders and showponies like harbhajan – who’s probably the worst test offie in the world. Yuvraj, Dhoni, jaffer – wouldn’t even make club cricket in any other country.
This Indian team deserves no mercy – the most spineless team to have left our shores
A crap team that cant bat out 2 sessions DESERVE TO LOSE.
Ban India from world cricket.
Just goes to show how much Will and some others here are a biased group of people. Why will you suggest Indians to get over it? What, you think only Australians have the right to win however talented the other teams are? You get over that feeling mate – I used to like your blog, but have now started feeling bad for reading the rantings of someone who is obviously very very biased.
BTW, your own Cricinfo has an article written to Ponting. It would make sense for you and those who support your view here, to read that first!
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/329708.html
Have you also read Cricinfo’s Surfer?
http://blogs.cricinfo.com/surfer/archives/2008/01/ponting_must_be.php
Instead of spending time on looking for pictures in Indian websites and newspapers to post them here and mocking at the Indians, why don’t you pause and think for a moment as to what led to all these?
If you do not remember, I wish to point out to you, another Cricinfo article about the ban handed to Latif for claiming a wrong catch. Do you think Ponting and Clarke deserve that too? If no, then there is something obviously wrong with you!
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/story/133468.html
“There is no way I grounded the ball” – Does Ponting think that this picture is probably doctored or are we to believe Ponting is probably mentally disintegrated?
http://datastore.rediff.com/images/briefcase/56565C686468605965636E645E7064/yu9kei12aqn8wtcr.D.0.07ponting.jpg
Saint – I just meant that the overreaction by Indian fans, players and officials can sometimes go over the top. Being upset about all the dubious umpiring decisions is completely natural, I feel the same way too. But protesting in the street in India, refusing to play the next test by the players, wanting to call off the whole series by the officials and some rabid Indian fans screaming about how ALL Aussies are cheats and should be immediately banned from playing international cricket is, you must admit, slightly over the top.
It makes me, as an Indian fan (though I support England more!) embarassed to admit that I support India.
gringo, el bravo!
it’s a pity that the saner Indian voices like yours rarely get heard above the braying of donkeys. (‘donkey’ is not intended to be a racist slur.)
But, all the Indians ranting off here must face up to the truth. C’mom guys, have the HONESTY to admit that Indians are the MOST HYPOCRITICALLY RACIST culture in the world.
The way Northies poke fun at darker skinned Madrasis. The way African students in Delhi are called “habshi”.
The way we lynch inter-caste couples.
Lose your rose tinted glasses and you’ll see Harbhajan for what he is – a glaring example of India’s own racist underbelly.
Not to mention, a terribly overrated under-skilled cricketer whose absence will only make the team better.
Raj… tell your real name… i guess you are not an indian.. trying to defame indians by posing an indian… c’on mate.. this is a very old and outdated tactic… i know who you are… but won’t embarass you by spilling the beans
The ground rules of this site:
1. we are not apologetic by crowd behaviour in india as crowds are not accountable for anything
2. We are ashamed rather by those people’s behaviour who are accountable
3. Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor is not just a crowd neither is Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds… in fact you are comparing them to crowd by implicitly suggesting that their behaviour should be condoned on the ground that unnamed crowd in India is behaving wrongly… After going through australian blogging sites, I am rushing to a college to get a tutoring on rationality and logic… every comment in all the blogs are starting with the debate “What harbhajan did was right or wrong?”… so everybody already made a judgement that harbhajan actually said what the alleged victims are claiming….
Small request: Let’s not do a “Ponting” by not allowing to publish what we do not like to hear….
Gringo, I did vaguely think that you might be Indian, since people don’t usually refer to themselves as being arrogant, etc ( or are you the sole exception to being these things?) but was addressing my comment, the second paragraph, more to the general Indian population on this blog, and others.
Agree everyone has lost it in some way or other. Roebuck is an ass.
OK lots of stuff going on here which is plainly ignorant.
1.what an isolated tiny section of indian fans do cannot & is never taken seriously.
2.Kumble said they didn’t play with the spirit of the game because at the start of the series both captains had agreed to exactly that ,WHICH WOULD ALSO INCLUDE not lifting catches off the ground.
3.I don’t think the team has done anything wrong, if you leave the lbw decisions out of it(which i think is a judgement call), even though quite a few aussies were right in front, there would be about 9 wrong decisions in the match.8 of them were against india.
4.For a country that has faced racism everywhere in the world and maintained an anti-racism stand always , it is impossible to believe any indian is a racist.
5.Lots of people are called monkey in india(assuming that bhaj used the word).It is not used as a racial word.For example if a person jumps up & down or is hyper active or behaves like a monkey he would be called ‘bandar’(monkey).If monkey is an offensive word and can be construed as racist in australia,bastard is far more offensive in india.
6.I was in the bombay game where symonds got a blob.Being there i know that the monkey actions by 2 spectators were definitely racial.They were ejected.
7.I think the australian cricket board is a fantastic organisation & is run very well.Sadly the indian board is run by a bunch of pathetic loser politicians whose only aim is to maximise the opportunity personally.It was sachin who asked the team to stay on & put pressure on the board to take it up, primarily because he knows bhaj is innocent & deserves a clean chit.He also believes that the match referee along with the umpires was unfair.I have heard rumours of malcolm speed coaxing mike procter to penalise the indians too.
8.Being a sikh i speak for the community since i saw reports on bhajji’s poor upbringing & how the indians aren’t liberal.My parents are from different religions(my mother is a hindu kashmiri).I wasn’t forced to wear a turban or grow a beard.I don’t, it’s my personal choice.Right now india is a very liberal country.I don’t know a lot about hinduism but i do know that they don’t worship monkeys , they worship 1 monkey god.I believe an aussie newspaper has morphed squealer symonds head onto the hindu god hanuman.Thats not on,actually its infantile.
8.Being punjabi, i have a lot of pakistani friends, & i am in constant touch with them.1 of them sent me something which would interest you.Pakistan vs Bangladesh in 2003 with rashid latif as captain.Rashid was banned for 5 matches for doing exactly what ponting has done,lifted the ball off the ground.The match referee stated that rashid was punished harshly especially because he was the captain.Ponting is the captain too.And this is where it gets really interesting.The match referee was Mike procter.
9.Lastly the way squealer symonds behaved in india recently didn’t earn him any freinds.He had a go at every1 in the indian team & the crowds.The crowd then responded by calling him monkey.He admits this happened in chandigarh.He made a lot of statements about the country which were poor & childish.Brian lara is a demi-god in india.He is black.Symonds has come here a few times.Why did the crowds react to him like this only on his recent visit??Think about it.
Sorry, Rusty. Am quite Australian — of convict stock and here tapping away in Melbourne
I do think that the Aussie team is arrogant. They have been for a while, and it detracts from their on-field performances. I just wish they could be more gracious. You don’t have to be so rude to play aggressive cricket — Steve Waugh was the perfect example of that.
Am glad that we agree that everyone is crazy, and yes, Roebuck can be an ass.
Whenever Aussies complained about some has said something to them or sledged them, my first reaction is look who’s talking. Yes Aussies are World Champions, yes they have taken their game to new level and the gulf between them and other teams is increasing by the day. But on the other side of the coin their reputation on and off the field is in tatters.
This is the side which has tried best to get official approval from the world for sledging or to say it in Steve Waugh’s language, mental disintegration. This is the side which won’t spare Mother Teresa if she is padded-up and got some runs against them. Just go back to recent history and you will find incidences of Glenn McGrath calling Sanath Jayasuriya ‘black monkey’ or fighting boorishly with Ramnaresh Sarwan.
They know how to win but after that they don’t have the decency to shake hands with their opponents. Anil Kumble kept waiting after losing the Test and none of the Aussie players had the courtesy to shake hands with him. I spoke to a few freinds in Australia who are journalists and they don’t have words to defend their team’s behaviour.
I Believe lots of high profile people in Australia have called Indian High commissioner in Australia and said sorry for Ponting and his team’s behaviour. Even the poll on Sydney Morning Herald( 1 of the better aussie dailies,i am told) suggested that the majority of Australians feel that Aussies just sledge other teams, but can’t take it back.
That brings me to the bigger question: is Harbhajan culprit of making racial remarks?I personally know bhajji,we used to play together. I know him for long enough to tell you that he is a tough guy. He is a sort of character every captain will like to have in the team. He has been a great friend and someone who hasn’t changed a bit since our days when we use to play together, you cant say this for many people who have got success at very small age. A small town boy who has made it big but his heart still lies with simple things in life. Someone who belives in the basic mantra of Gurbani which he follows very religiously like any other proud sikh. ‘Neither I give fear to any one nor I take from anyone.’We sikhs are a very proud community & we have a culture wherein 1 of our gurus was executed because he refused to convert to islam and preferred death to dishonour.
Harbhajan is someone who will like to give as he has got and that’s why he didn’t take long to give Ricky Ponting a send off at the very small age of 17 in 1997. Ponting abused him about tried to put 17 year young bowler under some pressure. But he wasn’t aware of the quantity, Harbhajan got him stumped and gave him a nice send of. That day an intense personnal rivalry was formed. Harbhajan rubbed more salts on Pontings wounds by getting him out five times on the famous tour of 2001. whenever Aussies have tried to handle Harbhajan by saying something they have been replied back in the same currency. In 2004 Darren Lehman used some f**** piece of S**** and Harbhajan didn’t take long time to tell him he looks like pregnant woman in this fit Aussie team.
Harbhajan and Aussie players encounters are regular but nothing has stopped him from doing very well against them and giving them back. This time it was no difference. Aussies were getting agitated by the partnership and started the old tactic of unsettling Harbhajan by giving him a mouthful. Obviously Harbhajan replied back in the same tone. I couldn’t contact bhajju but i did get in touch with some1 who said bhajji confirmed to him that monkey was not used.So there. He is a fighter and entire team, board and nation is behind him. If one man’s word is enough against another, entire Australian team should have been banned long time back. After all this nonsense, the australians want to be treated nicely in india.Your guys will be responsible for every hostile event which occurs in india later next year.There is a small segment of our population which is well and truly angered and if a mob goes crazy no 1 can help symonds.I’m hoping nothn of that sort happens.Also i’m hoping billy bowden in the next test gives 8 wrong -un’s to aus.
Bole SO Nihaal, ]
Sat sri Akaal.
Maybe part of the reason for the support for India arises from the arrogance Australia have shown against most top cricketing nations. The continued claim that they play hard and fair is looking pretty thin and maybe the chickens are coming home to roost.
“All in all, a disgraceful turn of events. Let them abandon it and let them bugger off home”
You make it sound like the Indian team is directly instigating the burning of effigies. Good job. What’s that about perspective?
Adityaveer,
“For a country that has faced racism everywhere in the world and maintained an anti-racism stand always , it is impossible to believe any indian is a racist.”
huh???WHICH INDIA ARE YOU LIVING IN???
we’re the most racist culture in the world.
northies like you call southies “kallus” or madrasis
upper caste zamindars lynch their lowercaste neighbors (and vice versa)
delhiites call every african student in D.U. as “habshis”
grow up, punk.
Indians are racists. Everyone is racist. It’s (sub)human but sadly natural.
The only difference is Indians whine, others don’t.
The real issue.
W Jaffer – DROP
R Dravid – KEEP
VVS Laxman – KEEP
SR Tendulkar – KEEP
SC Ganguly – KEEP (it pains me to say so)
Yuvraj – DROP
MS Dhoni – KEEP
A Kumble – KEEP
H Singh – DROP/BAN
RP Singh – DROP
I Sharma – KEEP
V Sehwag – ADD
R Uthappa – ADD
IK Pathan – ADD
Z Khan – ADD
Gonzo…just read your comment, and laughed hard. Superb.
As a certified kangaroo rooting, beer drinking, dope smoking, Bonds wearing Aussie bloke temporarily in exile in the Land Of The Free, Home Of The Brave, this whole incident has been fucking awesome.
It’s sorted the sheep from the goats as far as my Indian mates over here go…
Raj Dutta:
Dutta is a punjabi name.So when you say northies like you, it clearly means you know nothn about india.Quit fooln,we know you’re not indian.
Aussies:
These people that you see are ‘slogan -shouters’ of a fringe political organisation.They did it for publicity.Don’t get so worried.Sometimes I feel these aussies will die of paranoia.
WHat about the “you’re a Wanker” chants that bhajji recieved.Why no write up about that.& there’s a lot moer btw.
Symonds,clarke & ponting especially are going to have a really tough time in india.God help them.