Why blame Australia?

From Brendan Layton, Australia
An old problem has just been highlighted by Pakistan captain Younis Khan, and one that is always inflammatory and brings out the worst in parochial cricket fans. He mentioned on Cricinfo following the third ODI that controversies seem to rear their ugly head whenever an Australian team plays a nation from the subcontinent, and some degree he's right and to some degree he is wrong, although I'm not sure to what context he is speaking.

The problem stems from the recent trouble over suspect bowling actions, with Saeed Ajmal reported for problems with his 'doosra' and before that Johan Botha was called once again during the South African series over his 'doosra' and quicker ball. Now the suspicion in this case would not have come across in most cases, except that the team involved following both incidents was Australia. It takes only that sort of evidence for the narrow-minded to draw to the conclusion that Australia, who have struggled recently, are attempting to take bowlers who have had successes against them out of play. And to be honest, it is really easy to see the connection considering the history.

Muttiah Muralitharan was initially called for throwing in Australia in the early 90's by Darrell Hair, and that sparked a massive controversy. Ross Emerson did the same thing on Sri Lanka's next tour during an ODI, and that again sparked problems. When the '15-degree rule' was introduced, Murali no longer has any problems. Part of the problems is not with the Australian team as such, but as how the Australian team is viewed.

The Australian team that has dominated the greater part of the last decade has played superb cricket, but has come to be viewed as boorish, arrogant, overconfident and aggressive. That is true in quite a few respects; they were certainly no angels on the field. But there is no such thing as a saint on a cricket field. That issue was mostly developed under Steve Waugh's 'Mental Disintegration' ploy. It's not like Mark Taylor needed to sledge so intensely to win.

The Australian team has been viewed, primarily in the media, as bad losers and even worse winners and thus a lot of teams have their opinion switched firmly on the dislike. This has not been helped by the controversies that seem to follow them around, some of which they cause and some of which they are unfortunately drawn into. It wasn't the Australian team that called Murali, and in the two recent cases the spinners were called by neutral umpires, one of which was from the home country. Saeed Ajmal claimed that Shane Watson spoke to the umpires about it, but I'm sceptical about that claim as there isn't really any evidence of it and it wouldn't make any sense for the Australians to do it. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The last Indian series was one of the bitterest series in recent memory. Indian fans were baying for blood following the Sydney fiasco (Many STILL go on about it), and the attitude among the newer elements of the Indian team was to match the aggression of the Australian team. Australia was never going to win that series, but the many on-field and off-field incidents left a bad taste in the mouth. Australia has become a great scapegoat for problems due to the fact that they are most unpopular team in world cricket. Hell, they are liked less than George W Bush.