| In 1969, when Australia toured India the Aussies won the toss at Delhi and Bill Lawry and Keith Stackpole opened the batting. Subroto Guha, who died in 2003, opened the bowling for India. A few overs into the match, the ball slipped from his hand as he got into his delivery stride and rolled over to cover. Lawry (who assaulted a photographer in a subsequent Test at Calcutta) signalled Stackpole to walk across and hit the ball, which he did, golf style. It got him four runs but the crowd was incensed at what it thought was singularly unsportsmanlike behaviour. |
| That evening we bought a 20-foot- long piece of white cloth, on which we painted some rude things about the Aussie team in very large letters and took it along to the ground. We hoisted it on the hoarding behind us. As we were sitting directly opposite the pavilion, it was clearly visible to everyone there. At lunch a police officer came along and "requested" us to take down the poster. "We should not be rude to our guests," he said. |
| A few days ago, I told this story to someone who used to play for India until recently. He responded by saying some very rude things about Aussie cricketers, which surprised me because he is one of the gentlest people you can imagine. Just as Harbhajan Singh said on Thursday, he also said that while it was one thing to rib the batsman about his fear of the bouncer or his height or something like that, it was quite another to discuss how good his mother or sister or wife would be in bed. The Aussies, he said, behave like hooligans, using the most terrible language and abuse, and they make sure they do nothing that catches the third umpire's eye. It is all verbal. The ground umpires never say anything about all this. He said most umpires are scared of the Aussies. I then asked him if Sreesanth had been instructed to behave the way he did. I got the briefest of nods in response. |
| Indian players, who are brought up differently, used to keep quiet. But now they have decided to give it back to the Aussies and to particular players from other countries like Andre Nel of South Africa. But there is a problem: they can't bring themselves to abuse the batsman with much fluency. They simply can't bring off the Eddo Brandes kind of repartee. |
| After he had played and missed several times, Glenn McGrath asked Brandes why he was so fat. "Cos every time I f**k your wife she gives me a biscuit," Brandes replied. Can you imagine an Indian player saying this? In any case the senior players don't approve. So the younger players simply get into arguments and histrionics. |
| A few matches with the new Indian aggression and we can see the change in the Aussie players' tone. Until recently they were saying this was how they played the game "" hard and tough. The message was "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen". But now they are saying that it is bad and that they are here to play, not talk on the field. Really? |
| Indeed, after the Kochi match an Aussie TV expert "" the very one who had behaved so execrably with Venkataraghavan, who ruled not out on a catch appeal by him some years ago, and got away scot-free "" said talk would not win matches, only performance would. He added that the Aussies backed their aggression with performance as if that made abuse acceptable. Mind, this about a side that had beaten Australia barely 14 days ago and gone on to win the T20 World Cup! |
| Whatever Sreesanth does must be seen in the context of what the Aussies have been doing all these years. Now that it is being done to them, they can't say that if others must be aggressive, please be aggressive in a way that we can deal with. That's like saying please prepare hard bouncy wickets when we come to India, not spinning tracks because we can't cope with spinners. But just as each side has the right to decide what sort of wickets to prepare, each side also has the right to choose its own form of verbal aggression and attack. Ian Botham once held his wrists aloft and together to indicate handcuffs. The idea was to tell the Aussies they were all convicts. The Aussie media went wild with rage. |
| If the Indian team and Sreesanth have chosen their form of aggression, India should support them, not endorse calls to drop Sreesanth saying he is "over the top" and so on. Isn't mother-sister-wife abuse over the top? Why are the stump mikes muted? Why can't we hear what the Aussies say? As he took guard once, Rodney Marsh asked Ian Botham: "So how's your wife and my kids?" Ian Healy once told Arjuna Ranatunga, who asked for a runner: "You don't get a runner for being an overweight, unfit, fat c**t." |
| Should Sreesanth be punished merely because he makes faces, which is all pretty much what he does? Has he ever been accused of abusing the batsman? From all accounts, he is a very nice fellow, except when, as Gandhiji said, he has to do what he has to do. |
| Leave him. He is not just great fun but also just what the Aussies need. |
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