MUMBAI, 7 March 2008 — Andrew Symonds is the highest paid overseas player in the much tom-tommed Indian Premier League, second only to Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the list of cash-toppers. The Australian all-rounder’s talent is not in question, but his image is far from one who would make a good ambassador in the biggest showpiece of the game outside the World Cup.
Chennai team owner BCCI vice-president N. Srinivasan, bidding for the West Indies-born Australian player through his company Indian Cement, may not have considered the importance of imaging in the overall impact that the IPL is going to have on world cricket.
The big Australian, with deliberately entwined curls on his mop of hair, seems to be ever courting controversy. He was at it again, last weekend at Sydney which had already been the scene of one of the biggest fiascos that was enacted in the name of racism, during the India-Australia Test series. So biased was the verdict of the match referee, South African Mike Procter, that ICC had to appoint another referee and an independent high court judge from New Zealand to adjudicate in an appeal filed by Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.
In the ODI match in Sydney, Symonds unnecessarily provoked young fast bowler Ishant Sharma after he was beaten and bowled lock, stock and barrel by a snorter. Sharma reacted by showing a finger pointing towards the pavilion. The Indian was docked 15 per cent of his match fees and Symonds once again went scot-free. The Indian team lodged a protest with the match referee, this time Jeff Crowe, but more importantly, skipper Dhoni went out of the way to “warn” the Australian players that their many provocative acts of verbal sledging will not be tolerated any more. “We have learned how to give it back, and we will do it, come what may,” he said angrily at a media conference.
Strong words these, coming as they do from a highly responsible member of the team. But there is a limit to the manner in which the Australians have been needling key members of the Indian team, this time its most successful bowler Ishant Sharma.
It is obvious that captain Ricky Ponting has been using Symonds to create such situations and the hosts are being favored by the match referee.
One is surely not seeing the last of such ugly on-field scenes, as India have a couple of finals to play against Australia. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this Australian team are apprehensive of the power of the Indian team and are trying other ways to demoralize Dhoni’s boys.
For the infamous part that he has played in souring relations between the two sides, will Symonds be forgiven by the Indian crowds when he plays in the IPL matches around the country? One thing is certain and that is that he is not going to be a popular member of the Chennai side. Will Indian fans, who have, in a jiffy, been unkind to even their great heroes, Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, ever spare someone who has so far been the villain of the piece by nursing and nurturing anti-Indian feelings?
