India-Australia Series 2007-08

We have witnessed one of the most interesting phases of cricket if not most turbulent as well. The current series between India and Australia is more about clashes between personality rather than the cricketing skills and later became a clash between the cricketing boards and ICC. Even though excellent cricket has been played over past 8 weeks both by India and Australia, it had been completely marred by controversies.

IDEALLY SYDNEY TEST RESULT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANNULLED AND DECLARED VOID BECAUSE OF THE OBVIOUS ON-FIELD BLUNDERS CAUSED BY UMPIRING DECISIONS AND DISGRACEFUL APPEALING CLAIMING WRONG CATCHES.

But we understand this is not a perfect world and have to live with the result. If everthing would have been scripted the correct way (or fair way) interms of umpiring etc. India would have wrapped up the match on the 4th day winning the Sydney test convincingly. Needless to say that we could have performed better in the last hour of the match to have avoided the defeat even in these utmost turbulent conditions.

All this fuss is because of the use of "SLEDGING" in cricket. It is needless to say that sledging is a mind game deployed by the Australians to mentally upset and provoke the opposition by calling them names etc. But when they get the same dose of what they do, they are not ready accept it with sportsmanship. I dont understand how can the Australian cricketers (generally white colored cricketers) get away without any fine or reprimand for provoking opponents. The primary reason is because the ICC officials like the Match Referees and Match Umpires have always been biased towards the Australians (generally white colored cricketers), as result dont punish them for their rather ugly, disgusting, disgraceful behaviour on field and not because of the Australians' mastery of sledging as wrongly believed by many.

How can an Indian (Virender Shewag) can get banned for a match for appealing constantly but two Australians (Michael Clark & Andrew Symonds) can get away by wrongly appealing and claiming a catch. Indians would be termed racist (Harbhajan) for calling monkey and fined (Ishant) for gestures at opponents but Australians would not fined or reprimanded for provoking opponents (on 2 occasions Symonds), for using terms like bastards (Hogg), obnoxious little weed (Hayden)etc.

In the midst of all these contraversies we have had little to enjoy the quality of the cricket played not only marred by on-field activities but also off-field activities. How can a 38 yr old python like figure (Hayden) ask a 19 yr old ostrich like figure (Ishant) to join in a ring to fight out rather than fighting it on a cricket field. Does this really portray the insecurity that the Australians are feeling about losing their invincible title. I accept that there is a long way to go for any team to just dethrone the Australians from the NO:1 title, but still, I believe that in the recent past they have been threatened by only one team and that is INDIA.

India is not far away from gaining the NO:1 title with young legs trying to play competitive not only on cricketing terms but also in giving back the opposition its own medicine. The trouble with the Indian cricketers is that they get easily disturbed and distracted by the unrelenting media glare, instant fame and money. They need to have good head on shoulders to overcome the unwanted hype created by the media with a few match successes. Indian players have to prove their worth by succeeding over a longer peroid through meticulous training in cricketing skills, physical fitness and foremost of all is play with utmost pride and committment for the nation.

A billion hearts' skips their beat when we lose a match and a billion hearts rejoices when we win a match.

I am waiting for the current tri-series final with utmost enthusiam. I'm hoping that Indians give a tough fight and make Australians run, scramble for their money.

If INDIA manage to win the finals, it would be history created and mark of the new beginning of the SUPER POWER CRICKETING NATION