Australians Cricketers Mellowed
November 15, 2007 by Open Article Submission
Filed under News
Is the attitude of the Australian cricketers towards their opponent changing? At least the recent statements of the Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting and the cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland would give that impression. The Australian cricketers are known for their notoriously provoking remarks against their opponents before the start of or, during any series. They call it they Australian strategy to upset the opponents before a series has actually begun! Over the years, the Australians have often crossed the limit of decency and modesty which making such remarks. They have had often heart the feelings of their opponents too while practicing such exercises.
The Australian cricketers are pastmasters in this “art” and they almost enjoyed monopoly in this field. Naturally they were surprised when they were forced to have a taste of their own medicine during their just concluded tour of India, when even “light weights” like Harbhajan Singh. Shreesanth and even robin Uthappa dared to bully the world champions! It was almost shocking for the Australians to find players like Harbhajan Singh and Shreesanth matching the visitors in eye ball to eye ball confrontation and even perhaps in the on field sledging [as alleged by the Australians] too, the visitors could not believe that their own eyes and ears, as all this was coming from – all people – the “meek Indians”! They were socked too at the way some of the Indian cricketers reacted when they were targeted and teased. This was clearly reflected in Ponting’s press statements on reaching Australia after the tour. Ponting was quoted to have said “they [the Indians] made it pretty clear right at the start of the series [that] they were going to fight fire with fire but for us we know that is generally not the way they play their cricket”.
Ponting and his men still believe that aggression is not in the blood of the Indian cricketers and that the Indians “pretended” aggressiveness during the series as it was played in their own back yard. Hence, his challenge “we’ve got a lot of cricket against them in the next few months. So it will be interesting to see how long that aggressive-natured cricket dose last from they”. Australian leg spinner Stuart McGill pooh-poohed Indian aggressiveness when he said “it is always easier when you’ve got a lot of support at home to ride your emotions. They only need to look around and know that they’ve got a billion countrymen supporting them. I think you’ll find it doesn’t work for them if you are pretending.”
While it is true that only time will prove whether the aggression shown by some Indian cricketers are real or fake, one can not deny the fact that players like Shreesanth on Indian side did actually cross the limit. Pontings views about Shreesanth is, “he generally has a bit more aggression about him, a bit more body language than some of their other players do. They’re fairly passive sort of people, Indians and he is probably one from left field”. Man of the series Andrew symonds even threatened that the Indians will have to face the wrath of the Australian spectators when they tour down under in a few months time. Symonds unfortunately had to face the heat here in India during the matches when at several venues he was jeered at by some of the spectators who allegedly abused him and made racial remarks against him. While it should be highly condemnable and some of the spectators found guilty were rightly punished too, if one is to believe Harbahajan Singh, one gets the impression that it was all Symonds own creation. It was he who teased and passed remarks on Harbhajan Singh. The latter was seen waving his bat at Symonds and Michael Clarke in Kochi. Harbhajan later clarified, “they were saying personal things to me and I am not the type of person who is going to take that… if someone is saying something you have to say it back. You just can’t keep taking the things people are saying. You are there to play cricket, not to get abused”.
It would appear that things are fast getting out of hands. Something has to be done pretty fast to curve all this indecent behavior and pacify the warring parties. And pray, what they umpires on the field and outside it, are doing? They have already been entrustrated with immense power to control all such unruly behaviors by the players. It is clear that they have failed to perform their duties properly for some reasons or the other. However, some saner statements from Ponting Sutherland have come as a great relief in the midest of a tension filled atmosphere. Ponting have urged the Australian fans to not behave improperly with the Indian cricketers when the Indian team goes there next year. Ponting said “I don’t think [that] they [Indian] should be treated any differently because of what happened there… I’d like to see the Australian fans and public treat the Indian team the same way they would any other team”.
Cricket Australia chief executive Sutherland on a different occasion and a different context have assured the Sri Lankan off spinner Muthiah Muralitharan that he may expect warm welcome from Australian crowd in the coming two-test series to be played in Australia. Sutherland said “…the mere fact that he [Muralitharan] is coming is fantastic for cricket and we are very much looking foreword to seeing him on our shores and doing his best”. It may be mentioned here that there is a possibility that Murali might surpass the legendary Australian leg spinner Shane Warne’s world record tally of 708 test wickets on this tour itself. Muralitharan is only 9 wickets away from a new world record tally of test wickets.
One hopes that good sense prevails upon the Australian crowd as well as upon the cricketers from the hosts and the visiting team and cricket is played in a gentleman’s way.
Author: Subhash Dey
copyright: openarticlesubmission.com
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