The jelly bean of contention

The moral high ground is a precarious place to inhabit "" particularly since we have been guilty of sins of commission.

The last time Umpire's Post "" whose day job is to write on business "" heard so much about the jelly bean was 10 years ago, when Maruti Udyog was gearing up to launch the new-look Maruti 800, its bestselling car.

Speculation was rife that the car would be given the much-adored "jelly bean shape" of the Zen. Crores of rupees and the future course of the Indian car market were at stake. But why such fuss now over a couple of jelly beans making an appearance on the Trent Bridge pitch?

Precious (?) airtime and reams of newsprint have analysed the supposedly sinister sweet. Zaheer has waved his bat at Pietersen, who has protested his innocence, and Cook is being accused of secretly spoiling the broth. Dravid thinks of the confectionery as the manna from heaven that lit the fire of hell in Zaheer's belly, which was not too long ago a potbelly.

Honestly, the Indian team seems to have surprised itself by winning the second Test. Not quite used to winning in unfamiliar conditions "" this is only its fifth win in England in 75 years, or one every 15 years "" it is behaving like a bunch not quite used to winning.

It was a childish prank and should be dismissed as such. Even if the seemingly harmless sugar-coated sweet was an insidious allegation that Zaheer may have used it to achieve prodigious swing, it should still be dismissed as childish.

English county cricket is used to pranks. A bowler once bowled an orange and the batsman was dumbfounded when it exploded on his bat. World cricket is used to a sharper edge, with McGrath's and Gilchrist's spouses sometimes dragged into on-field gamesmanship.

Why is the Indian team adopting such moral high ground? We are, in general, not badly behaved, but it cannot be said that we do not behave badly.

Sree Santh's shoulder-barge into Vaughan comes from a long line of comparable gestures by Kiran More, Irfan Pathan, etc. We are the team that once refused to play a Test in South Africa unless the match referee was sacked. Aren't stands in India set on fire when the team looks headed for defeat?

Do we really believe that Zaheer won us the match because he was riled by the jelly beans? Is this not an insult to the man who has turned in the third best performance by an Indian fast bowler overseas after Venkatesh Prasad's 10 for 153 in South Africa in 1996-97 and Chetan Sharma's 10 for 188 in England in 1986? (Pathan's hauls in Zimbabwe and Bangladesh do not count.)