Australia v India 2007-08
A series review of Australia v India, 2007-08
Greg Baum
15-Apr-2008
Test matches (4): Australia 2, India 1
Twenty20 international (1): Australia 1, India 0
Twenty20 international (1): Australia 1, India 0
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"Bollyline" in Sydney will go down in history as a kind of cricketing sixday
war. It was all too real and nasty while it was happening, but it was
over almost as soon as it had begun. By the start of the next Test in Perth
ten days later, there was such peace and harmony on the surface it was as
if nothing had ever happened.
As in real wars, circumstances conspired fatefully. Questionable
sportsmanship, poor umpiring and alleged racism set the Second Test at
Sydney on a daily more precipitous edge, and tipped it over as Australia
pursued a record-equalling 16th successive win on the last day in typically
relentless fashion. They did snatch improbable victory from the jaws of
stalemate, but it seemed to be made Pyrrhic in its moment by the engulfing
firestorm.
There were casualties, not least among them the game's dignity. Harbhajan
Singh was given a three-Test ban (later rescinded). Posturing Indian authorities
threatened to abandon the tour. Commentator Peter Roebuck called for the
sacking of Ricky Ponting. Steve Bucknor lost his umpiring commission, and
seemed unlikely ever to regain it. India's captain Anil Kumble dramatically
invoked the spirit of a previous cricket war when he declared that "Only one
team was playing in the spirit of the game."
But the least-expected damage was collateral. Up and down the country,
there was an outpouring of anger at the disposition of the Australian side.
Roebuck's controversial call for the captain's head polarised the public in
a way that shocked the team. More broadly, this war deepened unresolved
tensions between Australia and India, cricket's on-field superpower and its
financial powerhouse. Their scramble for the high moral ground made for
an unedifying spectacle.
An animus had been brewing for months, since the World Twenty20
championship in South Africa. Some of the Australians thought India's
victory celebrations in that tournament were disproportionate to the
achievement: Andrew Symonds was one who said so publicly. During a
subsequent one-day series in India, the crowds taunted the distinctively
daubed and dreadlocked Symonds with monkey chants, perhaps imitating
the European soccer many of them now watch on pay TV, prompting a
clampdown by the authorities. Later, the Australians alleged that Harbhajan
also taunted Symonds on the field. Publicly, Harbhajan said the Australians
were in no position to complain; they were as vulgar as ever. Behind-thescenes
manoeuvres to broker a peace between Symonds and Harbhajan
evidently failed. But Symonds seemed unaffected; he played brilliantly in
India and was named Man of the Series.
India's preparation for their tour of Australia was short and rushed, and
they were thrashed in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. But there was little
sign of rancour. Some of the tourists remarked on how pleasantly surprised
they had been by their warm reception in Melbourne, and on the Australian
public's deep affection for Sachin Tendulkar. The spirit between the teams
appeared passably good. Kumble was the first visiting captain to accept
Ponting's standing proposal that the teams should take each other's word
about low catches, since technology had shown itself to be manifestly
inadequate.
Outwardly, the humour remained intact as the teams moved on to Sydney
for the New Year Test. In its unfolding, it was a classic, with a century every
day - including a gem from Tendulkar - and a breathtaking denouement,
with occasional spinner Michael Clarke taking the last three wickets in five
balls when all seemed drawn.
But at another level the match was slowly deteriorating. A series of
shocking decisions by umpires Bucknor and Mark Benson had an unsettling
effect. It began on the first day when Ponting was wrongly given not out
and then wrongly given out, to Harbhajan, his bête noire. The Australian
captain registered his dismay, which was something of a cheek in the
circumstances and an act he said later he regretted. It became item one of
the evidence when Australia's sportsmanship was at issue later in the match
and after it.
Later that first day, the impressive teenager Ishant Sharma was denied
Symonds's wicket from an edge so obvious that even Symonds subsequently
admitted he had hit it. He was 30 at the time; he made 162 not out. The
preponderance of bad decisions was against India, though not all. Tendulkar
was haplessly lbw to Clarke when he was 36; he made 154 not out.
More troublesome decisions followed. Partly, the players had only themselves
to blame, as much intemperate appealing put pressure on officials
already losing confidence. Superficially, the spirit between the sides remained
intact. Sharma congratulated Symonds on his
innings, Lee congratulated Tendulkar on his, and
Ponting refused to claim an apparent catch from
Rahul Dravid at second slip because he was unsure
whether it was clean.
But there was a quickening undercurrent. As
Harbhajan played a defiant hand in support of
Tendulkar, which propelled India into a first-innings lead, a slanging match
erupted. Principally, it was between Harbhajan and Symonds, whose mutual
dislike was now well known. Ponting reported to the umpires that Harbhajan
had uttered a racist epithet, perhaps "monkey" or "big monkey". Some said
Ponting acted preciously, even provocatively, given Australia's history of
waging so-called "mental disintegration". Unsustainably, some even alleged
that Ponting seized on the race card in an effort to rid himself of Harbhajan,
whose bunny he had become (he fell to him twice more in this match).
Others, including Ponting, said he did only what he had been enjoined to
do by the ICC in its anti-racism campaign.
A hearing before referee Mike Procter was set down for the end of the
match. Tension escalated. The last day was at once ugly and memorable.
Ponting extended Australia's second innings, gaining Mike Hussey another
century but seemingly leaving himself too little time to bowl India out again.
Playing for time, India used elaborate and cynical ruses to slow the overrate,
which would remain problematic throughout the series. Left 72 overs
to survive, India faltered, but time was tight, and two dropped catches looked
likely to cost Australia dearly. Both sides felt the heat. After tea, Bucknor
gave Dravid out caught at the wicket from a ball that plainly brushed only
his pad. India were doubly enraged - that there had been an appeal in the
first place, and then that it was upheld. Shortly afterwards Clarke, backed
by Ponting, claimed a low slip catch from Sourav Ganguly. The batsman
stood his ground, but was given out. Later, India would argue that, despite
the agreement between the sides about catching, they were under no
obligation to take the word of Clarke, who the previous day had refused to
walk when cleanly caught at slip first ball.
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This contretemps led to another between Ponting and Indian journalists
after the match. Victory, gained in long shadows with nine minutes to spare,
prompted unbridled jubilation among the Australians, leaving Kumble, who
had played a gallant unbeaten innings, to cool his heels. "That's about as
good a win as I've been in," chortled Ponting. But at a press conference
soon afterwards, Kumble charged Australia with a lack of sportsmanship as grievous as Douglas Jardine's in 1932-33. It was an overwrought claim: though Australia had behaved less than nobly, India were also guilty of
breaches of the game's spirit. Indians objected to Australia's triumphalism
at the end, but forgot the exuberance of Harbhajan upon dismissing Ponting
in the second innings, when he ran almost to the pavilion and performed
two inelegant forward rolls on the turf before team-mates caught him.
In the small hours of the next morning, after a long hearing, Procter
suspended Harbhajan for three Tests. Meantime, India brought a countercharge
against Brad Hogg for referring to them as "bastards". The next few
days were inglorious. India's authorities claimed, bizarrely, that it was
impossible for an Indian to be racist. They threatened to call off the tour
unless Harbhajan's ban was overturned, and the team, instead of travelling
to Canberra as scheduled, took refuge in their Sydney hotel. The ICC called
in their chief referee Ranjan Madugalle to broker a truce between Ponting
and Kumble. They also replaced Bucknor with Billy Bowden for the next
Test, saying they were acting in the best interests of the umpire and the game,
but - absurdly - denying that they had yielded to pressure from India.
Meantime, Roebuck's demand for the removal of Ponting reverberated
around the country, prompting fulminations on letters pages and websites
worldwide. One of the noteworthy aspects of this controversy was the role
of the internet in fanning it so widely and quickly. In the cacophony, many
ill-considered voices were raised. In his newspaper column, Indian legend
and ICC cricket committee chairman Sunil Gavaskar questioned Procter's
role, saying "millions of Indians want to know if it was a white man taking the white man's word against that of the brown man". Symonds scarcely
helped by saying that a bit of racial teasing between friends was fine, but
not between strangers.
A frivolous debate arose about the word "monkey" and whether or not it
was a pejorative in India. Protagonists asked us to believe that crowds in
India were possibly offering Symonds endearment. The idea that the ill will
between the teams was all down to cultural misunderstanding was the greatest
nonsense of all. International cricketers travel widely, make friends across
team divides, and learn to grasp cultural nuances. Whatever Australia and
India said and did to one another in Sydney, they meant it. The "spirit of
cricket" is unambiguous in any language.
At length, cooler heads prevailed. Harbhajan was given leave to enter an
appeal, which - conveniently - would not be heard until after the series.
The Indian board's threat to abandon the tour had
always been fatuous anyway, given the television
interests involved. The Indians moved to Canberra
for their tour match, then on to Perth. Madugalle
met Ponting and Kumble, and negotiated a peace
of sorts, each captain declaring that the game was
more important than any individual. But, curiously,
the pact on low catches was torn up. The Hogg
hearing was set for the night before the match, but at the eleventh hour, the
Indians withdrew the charge in what was widely praised as a magnanimous
gesture.
Still, twists remained. Having been cleared to play, both Harbhajan and
Hogg were dropped anyway, not for the sake of goodwill, but because the
WACA pitch looked to be back to its fast, bouncy old self, and each side
wanted an extra paceman. (Both had been paradoxical performers: Hogg had
made a valuable 79 at Sydney, but not taken a wicket on the last day;
Harbhajan was good for only three wickets a match but, likely as not, two
were Ponting.) The effect was to remove from the game two of the central
players in the Sydney drama, and the sacking of Bucknor made it three.
Benson, the other umpire, had not been scheduled to stand in Perth anyway.
Following the anthem ceremony on the first morning, all the players on both
sides shook the hand of every other. So, notionally, did Bollyline finish, ten
days after it began.
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The twists were not quite done yet. India won the Third Test, the first
Asian side ever to win at Perth, snapping Australia's winning streak at a
record-equalling 16. To what extent Australia were distracted by the minicrisis
of Sydney was impossible to say; Ponting thought not at all. To what
extent India were galvanised was also impossible to say; some of the Indians
thought plenty.
But India won the match wholly on their merits. They outplayed Australia
in their own conditions. Both sides misread the pitch, which was bouncy
but only moderately paced. Shaun Tait, replacing Hogg, proved a liability,
and two weeks later announced that he was quitting cricket for the time
being. Irfan Pathan, replacing Harbhajan, won the match award. Australia secured victory in the series after a high-scoring draw in the
Adelaide Test, Adam Gilchrist's last. The next day, an independent hearing
before New Zealand judge John Hansen downgraded the charge against
Harbhajan from racism to abusive language, rescinded the ban, and fined him
half his Sydney match fee instead. Justice Hansen said that in such a serious
case, a higher standard of proof was necessary: the word of three Australian
players was not enough. He made it clear that Symonds had been the
provocateur. He also amplified confusion about whether Harbhajan had said
"monkey", "big monkey", or "teri maki", words in Hindi that sounded similar.
For the previous week, the former Indian board chairman I. S. Bindra had
been in Australia, negotiating with Australian officials. Simultaneously, Indian
board vice-president Lalit Modi was reported to have said that, unless
Harbhajan was cleared, the tour would be cancelled and India would reconsider
future engagements with Australia. He also said that an adverse finding would
affect the prospects of Australians in the new Indian Premier League.
Australian players muttered anonymously about how India's money was now
ruling the game, which was a bit rich - pun intended - since many of them
were greedily eyeing the vast spoils available for the new Twenty20 tournament
in India. Justice Hansen indignantly denied media reports about a deal between
the two countries, or that he had been under pressure to reprieve Harbhajan
for the sake of future series, and rebuked the Indian authorities for even
allowing that impression to form. He had, he said, reached his decision
independently. But Hansen regretted the ICC's incomplete data about
Harbhajan's disciplinary record, which might have affected his sentence.
So ended Bollyline - for now. Three things were clear. Hypocrisy still
drags the game down. The ICC remains toothless. And India, failing to learn
lessons from long periods of powerlessness, are intent on throwing their newly
acquired weight around at every opportunity.