MUMBAI, 18 January 2008 — The fire that had raged for over a week, has been doused, but the embers still lay about in fear that they my be ignited, if the International Cricket Council does not see wisdom in burying the Sydney hatchet altogether.
India wants not only the three-Test on off-spinner Harbhajan Singh overturned, but also that the racism slur on him and the team be wiped out. To achieve that, the team management, and skipper Anil Kumble in particular, have withdrawn their own such charge against the Australian spinner Brad Hogg. The ICC, in a tactful move, has now put off the hearing of Harbhajan’s appeal till the end of the Test series. There the matter rests.
It is a happy tiding all round that cricket, as it is played on the field, has taken center stage again. The one big lesson that has emerged from the Sydney fiasco is that sledging, tactless and unnecessary verbal exchanges between rival players on the field ought to be wiped out completely. Today, even a good-natured banter can be misinterpreted as an insult or an abuse with racist overtones.
The game might be poorer for want of some good humor, but as things are turning out these days of high-tension battle, the dividing line between the harmless and the harmful is indeed getting thinner. The bottom line, however, is that teams that are high on cricketing acumen need not seek other avenues to assert themselves.
The present Australian team is strong enough to carry away everything before it, without having to ply its own peculiar mind games. Today one the biggest critics of the veiled form of sledging is Ian Chappell, who was himself the originator of the art of gaining one-upmanship by intimidating the opponent by the word of mouth.
If Sunil Gavaskar, given a wrong decision, almost took his opening partner Chetan Chauhan with him at Melbourne some three decades ago, it was because fast bowler Denis Lillee, who claimed the dubious lbw decision, had said something very nasty, adding insult to injury on the Indian captain. It was an instant display of rightful indignation.
If that incident had to take place in today’s scenario, one is certain, the ICC would have pulled up the two Indian batsmen and nothing would have happened to the bowlers or fielders indulging in abusive or humiliating remarks. That is why Gavaskar is the staunchest critic of this “nonsensical”: attitude of the field umpires and box officials who are so subservient to what he describes as “a champion side.”
