Comment

It is time for our cricket board and players to be more aggressive

The question that’s been strangely muted in the Symonds-Bhajji affair is a simple one: Why don’t Indian players complain to the umpires and referee each time one of them is abused on the field? After all, as Krishna put it to Arjun in the Bhagvad Gita, it’s a greater sin to tolerate injustice.

If that sounds facetious in the context of a game of cricket, consider what is unacceptable under section 2.8 of the ICC’s code of conduct which was eventually used to punish Harbhajan Singh: “Using language that is obscene, offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another player…”

It’s clear the clause is meant to rid the game of exactly the kind of “unprovoked, unnecessary, and invective-laden attack” that judge John Hansen noted Symonds had initiated in the Sydney Test. It’s equally clear that no action can be taken against aggressive and abusive players like Symonds unless the opposition lodges a complaint, and so the agent provocateur goes scot-free.

This is in stark contrast to the alacrity with which Australian captain Ricky Ponting jumped into the fray when Symonds and Harbhajan were having a go at each other. He told umpire Mark Benson to make a note of it and even directed him to go and tell the other umpire Steve Bucknor about it. Then he took a break for an over to go to the pavilion and ask his team manager to prepare a formal complaint for the referee.

You might argue Ponting only did this because he thought a racist term had been used, and he would accept words like “f**k” and its derivatives that Symonds admitted using or the “I can’t wait to run through you bastards” that Hogg admitted directing at Indian captain Anil Kumble and vice-captain MS Dhoni “without malice”. Abuse is okay, racism is not, is the message. But why does the Indian team let Ponting set the terms for what is acceptable behaviour on the cricket field? Why not just go by the ICC’s book and complain each time the code is violated?

Instead, Kumble went for a gentlemen’s agreement with Ponting to accept the fielder’s call on a disputed catch rather than play by the rules which provide for referring it to the third umpire. The ludicrity of that understanding became apparent during the Sydney Test when the Australians, including their captain, claimed catch after catch which TV replays showed had been grounded. For a similar offence earlier, South African referee Mike Procter, the same one who officiated in Sydney, had banned Pakistani wicket-keeper Rashid Latif for five matches and ended his career. Nobody even lodged a complaint against captain Ponting or captain-in-waiting Michael Clarke for claiming those catches.

The question arises if India is getting short-changed for being led by nice guys like Anil Kumble, and Rahul Dravid before him, who make nice gestures like running up to Symonds to shake his hand at the end of the first day’s play in Sydney, where he remained unbeaten only because he stood his ground after getting a thick edge to the keeper and got another reprieve when the Australian third umpire refused to uphold a clear stumping despite a replay.

Either they’re being nice, or they’re reacting to provocation crudely like Harbhajan or Sreesanth — both ways, they get the short end of the stick. That the Indians have been less street-smart than the Australians in working the system to their advantage is apparent from the fact that they have copped the maximum punishments for ICC code violations, when most observers of the game will agree it’s the Australians, right from Steve Waugh’s time, who have taken the lead in deliberately using aggression, taunts and abuse to distract set batsmen.

More fundamentally, the failure of teams like India to be proactive in nailing abusers is short-changing the game itself, marred increasingly by confrontations. Compare that with tennis, where similar confrontations used to be commonplace, but have almost disappeared now because any abuse, racial or otherwise, is just not tolerated.

Ricky Ponting says Australia’s governor-general Michael Jeffery’s call for a return to good manners in cricket belongs to the 50s. Rather, it is abuse and cheating that belongs to the last century, as exemplified by Diego Maradona’s apology for his hand-of-god goal. But, as Krishna told Arjun, the bigger sin is to tolerate abuse and the Indian team has been guilty of that on innumerable occasions, such as the withdrawal of its complaint against Hogg as a goodwill gesture.

So, more than flexing its commercial muscle after its players are banned, our cricket board would do better to be proactive — by reporting abuse, by weighing in on selection of umpires and referees, and by refusing to let our world champion T20 side play on alien soil without a single practice session.

Email: c_sumit@dnaindia.net