Rich in his blog cricket-blog.co.uk, had a track back to my post and has expressed his views on Indian bloggers over-reacting unnecessarily. I couldn’t possibly post these in the comments section.

Rich… Welcome to cricketfizz, a blog and forum where anyone can register and contribute. I appreciate your view points and in response to your thoughts, here are mine.

I believe that you (England alright) and most Australian bloggers for the matter of fact have not understood clearly at all the areas which most Indians are unhappy on. There is too much generalization and the key points all seem to be conveniently washed out.

Am highlighting in bold some points you have raised for which my viewpoints will be suffice to argue our case.

Australia play the game hard..“ They claimed an unbelievable win”.
Let me tell you until the events which I will touch upon later in this post, almost all Indian fans deeply respect the Australian team for their cricket. A view echoed even by the Indian team. For an Indian fan, there is no other team which we are keen to play with other than Australia. Don’t believe it… Run through the archives of all these sites who are over-reacting.

3 decisions cause all this fallout?Now that’s a huge understatement. I don’t think you have watched this match in full at all. There are more than 12 decisions (a lot more in fact) and yet this is not the core reason for the fallout. I would request you to please download the entire match and preferably not watch channel 9 coverage, if you want to make any attempt to understand how it is not a question of 3 poor decisions but enough ones to run through a side. When umpiring can be this poor… Consistently poor with possible malicious intent, I think we have the right to protest.

Nobody is blaming Andrew Symonds for not walking. Nobody is blaming an Australian team for taking advantage of their luck. This seems to be the grouse everywhere that the Indian fans are angry with the Aussies for taking advantage. Yet, there are some cases that need to be noted, because they were agreed upon before the match between the umpires and the two captains! Clarke’s decision to stand his ground after a very Blatant nick to slip is equivalent to a batsmen getting bowled clean through his legs and stands his ground for a hopeful decision.

For 4 straight days, the umpiring was grossly… Yes, in quotes, bold, whatever… “grossly one sided”. Yet, to my knowledge, most Indian bloggers lashed out at ‘poor umpiring’ and never claimed that the Australian team were cheating, which most bloggers from other nations conveniently put words into our mouths claiming we are accusing them of being cheats! But then that is for almost 4 straight days.

The reasoning behind the refusal to continue the tour revolves around a potential racist comment made by Harbhajan Singh to Symonds, and if you believe what you read then there wasn’t an awful lot of evidence for this. However, don’t believe that you know the whole story as you can bet that the match referee made the decision he did for the right reasons – after a heated test he was hardly going to stir things up more just for the sake of it.

You are right about one thing. This Harbhajan issue is the reason for the fallout. You are clearly contradicting yourself by saying, however, don’t believe that you know the whole story etc. Do you know the whole story? Or does Mike Procter or Mike Provoker as I fondly call know the whole story as you claim? Mike Provoker before the hearing had issued a statement that neither he, the microphones or the 2 umpires heard anything. I put this in bold for you to understand further.

The following is not rocket science to understand.

From the place of this incident, the people who were closest were Sachin Tendulkar and Bucknor. There might be players around within any audible range but I would like to question your wisdom of how a wicketkeeper, standing behind a stumps (remember, even the mic’s didn’t pick anything!) could have clearly heard it or Mathew Hayden at the slips, could have clearly heard it or Ponting for that matter. Conveniently, all of these would be washed off by you guys. This is amazing isn’t it. The Australians in question all have super alien ears with high resonating ear drums to listen from such a distance and vouch for it.

Sachin Tendulkar in the press conference below had explained the nature of the conflict. There was nothing about a monkey there or nothing to indicate that it was heated except being something cry-babyish silly.

The Indians are upset and are claiming that this is a false allegation on the part of the Australians, which as it stands today, neither a Sachin Tendulkar or a Harbhajan Singh have called or heard him abuse Andrew as a “monkey”. Your Mike Provoker, did not take the statement of Sachin who was closest to the incident but took the statements of a bunch of guys who couldn’t have heard, considering the umpires didn’t either.

If Harbhajan had indeed said it or later admits to saying it, IF IT IS TRUE, he deserves whatever he has got and he will be flocked by the Indian fans for lying and bringing shame to a nation!! That’s not an understatement! As it stands now, he hasn’t said it and the wisdom of the referee was biased and clearly lacked intelligence.

Correct me here if I’m wrong. I don’t think Ricky Ponting filed an official complaint against Harbhajan in the last series. On what basis or records specifically is Mike Provoker referring to claim he has a past record of a repeat offence? Doesn’t an Australian team have a long and distinguished record for the same? Mike Provoker “believed” that he is guilty no better than how I believe Mathew Hayden isn’t human, judging by the way he bats.

And about this incident, one point seems to have been conveniently swept under the carpet. Who started this incident? Andrew Symonds told the media that he had a “crack” at Harbhajan because of some absolutely petty and friendly incident with Lee. How come there has been no fine, warning or anything of that sort dished out to Symonds!! Considering a history of a sour relationship between the two. Wasn’t this crack any violation at all.

A Yuvraj singh when he got out, showed dissent and was rightly and promptly booked for a hearing which Provoker let him off. A few hours later, Ponting showed an identical dissent and was NOT BOOKED at all for a hearing! Interestingly, Malcom Speed, the ICC president lashed out at Provoker for not dealing with Yuvraj and Ponting. In his last statement about this issue, Provoker admitted that he made a mistake to let Yuvraj go scot-free. What is for you to hear is there is absolutely no mention of Ponting.

I can assure you that there are enough reasons for us to not “bet” that Provoker did things for the right reason at all.

I’ll feeling about the way that Ponting and his team went about winning

Anil Kumble’s statement on only one team played in the spirit of the game was based on the fact that there was an agreement between the captains and umpires on low catch decisions. There were also talks between to play without sparking off any controversies, considering the last series with India was volatile.

Kumble’s views can be based on the fact that Michael Clarke did not take the catch. Everyone can focus on the fact whether the ball had bounced or not but conveniently ignore the fact that he never was in control of the ball and grassed it on the roll. The catch was never completed and feel free to look up on what a completed catch is! A series back when Australia played New Zealand, there was a stunning catch from Fulton (not sure exactly who) on the boundary lines, where the debate was similar and was graciously not called a completed catch.

Kumble’s views can be based on the fact that Ponting, the captain had grassed and appealed. All other bloggers can immediately point out Ricky’s integrity on having not claimed a catch in the earlier innings. So just because he is honest in one, do we have to take it that he is honest for all! How dumb!!

Australians abused the Indians too. Hogg called them a Bastard, which has very serious impact here in India in terms of the cultural sensitivity. The Indians did not choose to whine and whimp on it until, the Australians opened a can of worms!! Indians have not made false-allegations or have not been accused of it.

Many bloggers from other nations can highlight the fact that the Indians were appealing like crazy. They conveniently ignore the fact that the Australians were much worse on the last day and even got away with it and the decisions. The hat-trick ball from Kumble which was a close shout, almost as good as out, warranted a Bucknor to talk in length to Kumble who didn’t say anything and just looked grim, visibly pissed! So was Bucknor, exchanging pleasantries of the weather or explaining the decision? That doesn’t happen, does it? Warnings can be given, no-balls promptly called for one-side and ignored for the other, this is nothing more than a farce!

On the match been fixed… Absolutely. I’m not claiming that the Australians fixed it¦ but there is enough reasons to see the umpires did. Now please don’t tell me that I’m naive to believe umpires can’t fix matches. That’s bullshit! If an umpire has problems with a board or doesn’t like a team for the way it plays cricket, then they do fix. Don’t believe me! Wasn’t a Darell hair thrown out for false allegations in that Pakistan match? Was Hair right there? Everything showed that Hair had misused his power and the committee knocked him for that! Still there will always be a bunch of blind people, who will immediately say the Asian boards threw their weights and water down the fact that umpires have in contrary, a history of being deliberately unfair to a team!

Rich, you may feel that we have failed to appreciate Australia’s win which is by playing hard! But I think everyone has conveniently forgotten the fact that this match should have been won by India by almost a day to spare… A real serious fact that most bloggers from other countries don’t at all feel comfortable admitting that. They can all also say that if this match was a draw, then all of this would not have blowed up, which is short-sightedness to say the least. This series is in turmoil because of racial allegation charges which both sides differ on whether the word was said or not. For one nation, it is a question of national shame! And all Indians very much respected Australia for having played the first test match hard and having won! To say that the Indian team is boycotting because of bad umpiring is stupid to say the least. The issue is the racial slur. Period.

And for many to say that only the Australians played their cricket hard in this test match would be yet another understatement.  India played damm hard!

P.S: Dear Rich… I have also directed several of my arguments to other blogger friends of mine and hence please take it in light that we are exchanging our different points of views. Cheers man