Hypocrite's Honesty
I really did not think I'll get back into blogging. But, the second 3 mobile Test match between India & Australia at the SCG, just makes me feel so bad that I couldn't avoid this.
The words have now been clearly etched that the current bunch of Australian cricketers, headed by Ricky Perfidious Ponting, are dishonest machiavellians you'd ever seen on a sports field. Asking players world over to be honest and take the words of the fielders, what Ponting & co. have done this match is really disgraceful. It has tarnished the name of the Gentleman's Game. Here are the reasons why I feel so...
1) Ponting should have walked (by his standards, I don't claim this should happen everywhere, and I am not very disgruntled about this, except that Ponting asks for other batsmen to do so) when he was caught behing off Ganguly. But, seriously, this isn't too much to what happened later
2) Ponting was furious when he was incorrectly adjudged leg-before (Oh, so, where did all this go when you were left to score 30+ more runs?)
3) Symonds, the cry-baby, does he know what sportsmanship is? So, he just runs around every cricketing ground, when they're losing, and lodges a complaint about racism. Have you seen anything more shameless in a sporting field? He played atleast 4 innings this match!!
4) Nothing about the umpires can be an exaggeration. May be I should say in short, They just don't know professional cricket.
5) Hussey's wicket in the second innings. It was so evident to everybody that he was plumb, why did Bucknor not call it? And hey, Bucknor warned Kumble for his appeal against Symonds (the hat-trick delivery that wasn't)!!!
As if these weren't enough...
6) Ponting takes a pitched ball and claims to have caught it
7) Clarke grasses the catch and claims to have taken Ganguly out, to top it, Ponting tells the umpire he's out!!!
8) Ponting says the media shouldn't be standing there for questioning his integrity. Mate, you just shouldn't be playing cricket. You may be a great batsman, but, if I played cricket, and wasn't given out everytime I was out, I'd be having a Bradmanesque average! You didn't walk, faked a catch, and tried to fake 2 more.

In all these, I didn't forget that Laxman was let to score a 100 in his first innings (the lbw was a difficult call too, otherwise, Bucknor wouldn't have let that appeal go down). Still, there was a 100 from Sachin, and Ganguly and Harbhajan played enough to take the lead. This wasn't Australia's win, it was Cricket's loss only for the way it was played by the home team. Five absorbing days of cricket have been marred beyond recognition by the umpires and one team. Now, I don't understand what should make me think if Ponting, personally, did not fix the match paying Benson and Bucknor. Can and Will that be investigated???