India had to chose between dishonour and war

No student of history one can ever forget Churchill’s immortal statement on the policy of appeasement in a speech to the House of Commons, where he bluntly told man of peace Neville Chamberlain that, "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war."

Now, there are strong allegations that BCCI's money power forced the removal of Bucknor and suspension of the ban on Harbhajan.

IT IS TRUE. If Indian board was poor, and Indian team not wanted for commercial reasons in all parts of the world, this would certainly not have happened.

But then this financial clout was just used for benign purposes -- to set a wrong, right. Right.

Sydney test was a big fraud, and that rankles even today, despite all the excellent performances and some nerve wrecking drama seen between January 2 and 6. The end result was grossly unfair, as unfair as England losing to the hand of god in the 1986 football World Cup, where all Englishmen would have felt so cheated, and would love to have that match replayed even today.

But neither that result could be erased (against Argentina), not this one can be. But the ones who perpetuated this fraud on the playing and the viewing public did need to be reprimanded.

Instead, attempt was made to reprimand and ban someone whose heroics with both bat and ball, generated so much of interest. And that too against all tenets of natural justice.

So what is wrong if India used its threat of tour withdrawal and financial clout in the cricketing world to make the ICC see reason. Probably, people would have been justified in criticising BCCI had the evidence of wrongdoing were not so glaringly evident on TV Screens. The cheating was so blatant, that it became nauseating.

The very fact that the Australian media and public rallied behind the Indian team showed that the money power was never abused. It was only used to correct a wrong.

In fact, after losing a tennis match yesterday to some poor umpiring, Australian Lleyton Hewitt exclaimed that he was feeling like Indian cricketers.

Those who love cricket but never watch tennis, must know that Hewitt is a national icon in Australia!

Tales of Blind men in Indian Print Media Today

Blind men in white coats do India in in the Times of India, and Symonds, Bucknor guide Oz out of jail in HT, were the perfect front page (main page of the paper) reporting in Indian media on the cricketing developments of yesterday.

One can go on and on about asking the Indian players to fight it out, which of course they should do, but it must not stop journalists and administrators from taking the issue very seriously, and persistently.

HT wrote ‘’a spectacular batting assault by the Australian all rounder Andrew Symonds was sullied by association with one of the most grotesque umpiring decisions of recent times, as India had a precious advantage snatched and morale battered on the first day of the Second Test at Sydney.’’

How true. And the paper also quoted Ian Chappell as describing the umpiring as ‘’shocking’’. We all felt the same way.

The Times of India wrote that ‘’Bucknor has been hounding the Indians with poor decisions, from as far back as in 1992-93. He was involved in some bad decisions on the 2003-04 Australian tour.’’

But then the Indian Cricket administration is also to be blamed. They should have gone all out against this man, if they seriously believed that he only means harm to the Indian prospects. How can a team play confidently down under if they believe that a certain umpire is always going to favour the home side at critical stages. Do not count the reprieve he might give to the Indian batting now. The damage has already been done.

There was nothing on the controversy on the main page in the Indian Express and the Hindu. A pity because the subject had generated such an outrage among the media and the fans yesterday.

And if Indian batting does click in the first innings, players, writers and fans will keep thinking on what could have been the fate of the series had……!

Salim, Aur Tum kuch kar bhi kya sakte the! (Salim, what else you could have done!)

Yesterday on NDTV, Nawaz Sharif drew a parallel between the situation in Pakistan and the historical drama Mugal-e-Azam.

Nawaz said when Salim and Akbar were standing face to face alone in the Emperor’s court, Salim mumbled ‘’Anarkali kaid kar li gayi aur mein kuch na kar saka (My beloved Anarkali was imprisoned (by my father) and I could not do anything). Akbar, the all powerful emperor, as a matter of fact, replied. ‘’Aur tum kar bhi kya sakte the (What else could you have done son).’’

After watching yesterday’s and today’s proceedings, Bucknor does remind one of Akbar and Salim reminds one of Kumble and the Indian team. Anarkali is India's quest for victory to level the series!

Despite all the criticism, today when Symonds was on 148 and there was another appeal for stumping, a rather close one, Bucknor chose not to refer the appeal to the third umpire.

While the commentary in Cricinfo said, he (Symonds) just appeared to have some part of his foot grounded behind the line (Note that Cricinfo, renowned the worldover for their tremendous commentary, wrote the word just in italics), another replay from stump vision during the lunch break clearly showed that Symonds' foot was not behind the line. Even if it had been, the matter would still have been too close for Bucknor to have decided himself.

Now, was Bucknor protecting the third umpire, or behaving like Emperor Akbar in Mughal-e-Azam, one will never know.

But one does know that yesterday on various channels, Headlines Today, Aajtak and NDTV, experts had clearly lambasted Bucknor and questioned his competence to umpire at this level.

Aussie Grit; Deaf Bucknor

With a team struggling at 134 for six after electing to bat on the very first day of a test, what do you expect the batsmen to do.

Most of the teams will have their batsmen hanging around for long enough for a good ball to come and snap their resistance!

But not this Australian Side. When Hogg joined Symonds, Australia were tottering at 134 for six. The strike rate at this point of the innings was 64.15.

The duo was expected to just hang around for few overs, even if that meant that scoring rate went for a six. However, the two players kept on scoring as well, at times at will, to muster their 50 run partnership (a four at 49 taking them to 53), in just 64 balls. It was an astounding strikerate of 83 considering the Australian situation. The running between the wickets was exemplary, helping them convert twos into threes.

That is the Australian grit for you. Though they do need a deaf ally in Bucknor from time to time. A man with 'conveniently' waxed ears.

India tried their best, but the Australian tails' aggression paid. What should have been a total around 160-170, could well go past 260-270. A respectable score, considering India should be batting fourth on this track. And also considering what could have been possible without those glaring umpiring errors.