97 per cent in favour of tour being called off!

Well, that was the verdict at Aaj Tak midway through an SMS campaign to assess if the tour needed to be called off, or not. Flipping through various channels, one failed to see the final verdict but going by the adverse sentiments in the aftermath of a three-test ban on Harbhajan, the final result would not have been less than 95.

Going by the voting pattern, People looked extremely aggrieved by the decisions taken by Bucknor-Benson duo, which Sanjay Jha of Cricketnext, on NDTV, appropriately equated with what Bunti and Babli could have delivered! (Sorry, Can’t recall exact words. His was the best punch line delivered by an Indian yesterday)

One caution. A big majority of these voters on Aaj Tak advocating tour to be called off were cell phone wielding, Hindi speaking Indians. But things would not have been much different even if Yogendra Yadav were to conduct such campaign!

Deepak Chaurasia also cautioned that people are highly emotive. Had such campaign been carried out in Australia, probably an overwhelming majority would have said that ban on Harbhajan was justified even in the absence of an audio, video, or umpire’s evidence.

BCCI did the right thing by saying that they will not call off the tour. But the wrong thing they did was saying it immediately, and losing a powerful tool of negotiation. Extremely undiplomatic.

In much the same way as they said on the first day that Team has been asked to lodge report against umpires, decided not to do that after a wonderful fight back on the second day, and then again decided to lodge a protest on the final day.

Bucknor may not stand in any of India’s matches in future. The Board is powerful enough to ensure that. But the Indian team will continue to suffer with or without Bucknor if some people think they can get away with anything. The Issue is not just bad umpiring. The issue is fair play in all the aspects of the game.

Somehow the Australians have always tended to influence the umpires during the tours down under. And it is not just India who have suffered. High time for all the affected nations to sit together and sort out critical issue.

The series has been effectively killed for India. We could well be seeing eleven dead men, with crushed spirits, walking in Perth and Adelaide. If they still fight it out and manage a draw or a win, each one of them will deserve the Cricketing equivalent of Bharat Ratna.