Some exoneration, this!

The outcome of the racism charge levelled against Harbhajan Singh by the Australian cricket team may have created more problems than it has solved. Singh has got away with being held guilty on a lighter charge, and got a mild financial slap on the wrist. But this is evidently because of two things "" the Indian cricket board flexing its muscles and threatening to walk out (leaving Cricket Australia with the prospect of large liabilities on TV contracts), and a backdoor deal of some kind whereby the Australian players were arm-twisted into withdrawing the racism charge although it would seem that that is not what they wanted to do. Under the circumstances, it is questionable whether Singh has really been exonerated "" especially after the recording of what happened on the field has been made available. Indian cricket officials may question such evidence surfacing late in the day, but it does make less credible the initial defence, that what is alleged to have been said was either not said or was misheard or was not heard by anyone other than the Australian players "" and therefore that the charge, at worst, is not proven. All but the most nationalistic will wonder whether an Indian cricketer has got away with wrongdoing because Indian fans give the game its money. If so, it makes a mockery of any disciplining system.

This is no way in which India's cricket establishment should be conducting itself, because it transfers a charge against one player into a bigger charge against the Indian cricket authorities, who, instead of threatening to walk out, should have allowed due process to continue and to take the rough with the smooth. There is, and will be more, criticism levelled at India from many playing countries "" and it will be justified criticism. This is quite a different situation from the moment after the second Test when it was clear to all that India had been pushed into defeat by a failure of umpiring, and so there was international support for the Indian position that the guilty umpire must go or India would not play. The international cricket authorities then bent the rules in order to do the sensible thing, and India proved a point. The criticism of Australian team behaviour also had its effect, and Ricky Ponting and his men behaved themselves in the subsequent Test matches. Once again, India had made its point. Now, it has undone all that good work.

The counter-argument could be that it is the Australians who do the maximum abusing (or sledging) on the field, and that it is a bit rich for them to complain when others do the same. That is of course true, but if you want to pay them back in the same coin, you should do it intelligently so that you don't get caught in a rule trap. The larger lesson that India (and this goes beyond cricket) has to learn, as it grows in economic power and international recognition, is that it pays to behave correctly in all situations, but especially so when you call the shots.