The Indian have made pact to muscle up to Straya; that their new breed of intemperate Sikh warriors, steaming out of the burgeoning middle classes, are ready to rumble with the pack of wild dogs.
Fair enough.
Woof.
Just don't squeal like pigs when you're not winning... like you did last summer. "Only one team had played the match, blah, blah." Protests. Effigies. Donkeys. Monkeys. Maa Ki.
Jonny Pierik:
India's behaviour is disgraceful
ANIL Kumble had the Indian press corp in raptures last summer when he declared: "Only one team had played the match in the right spirit."
The tourists – both players and media – were dismayed with the events of India's Sydney Test loss to Australia, remembered for the ugly spat between Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh and shocking umpiring decisions.
The Indian captain's comment lit an explosive fuse that raged for months.
But yesterday the injured skipper was noticeably quiet when his team motored to a victory tainted by ugly local tactics that were by no means in the "spirit of the game".
I respectfully have to disagree with Samir: Gideon Haigh is right. India want their curry and eat it, too.
Although it is a commonplace that Australia is the world's most aggressive team, it is actually more accurate to describe them as the world's most consistently and uniformly aggressive team. That is, where a number of teams exhibit aggression in spasms and phases, and certain individuals from other countries are inclined to throw regular weight around, Australians are better at maintaining a lounging, low-level hostility at all times. Indeed, one of the bones Ponting has picked with India is that their players appear to vary in their willingness to contest. He complained, for instance, when the hosts, chockfull of cheek in the first two games of last year's one-day series, suddenly took umbrage in the third: "If the Indians can play the sort of cricket they did play for the first couple of games and then completely turn around and go the other way in the other games, it showed us how fake, if you like, the first part of the series was as far as they're concerned." One of the reasons Bhajjigate festered on in January, I suspect, was a residual annoyance about what Australians see as an Indian tendency to periodically redefine the acceptable level of on-field belligerence. Thus Ponting's hankering to obtain an ICC determination of what was beyond the pale - not a wise move, really, considering the ICC needs a committee to determine the day of the week.
A poll: Which Aussie course of action would you like to see?
a. Shut up, head down, stiff upper lip, ignore, dignity, application, diligence, manners, courtesy, sportsmanship, win well, lose well.
b. Next time an Indian chips an Aussie, he gets a punch in the mouth.
Not that we're advocating violence.
On 3AW this morning Jon Anderson said, in effect, "the Aussies are just getting their own back." Balls! Two wrong-uns don't make a right-un. Straya have made a concerted effort to clean up their act. CricAussie, the ICC and the BCCI agreed. And yet, hot on the heels of the Indians chucking the toys out of the crib in Australia, here they are doing every single thing they whinged about. Sledging: Rollerboy, we know you said monkey. Claiming catches: don't lie, MS, you know the ball bounced. Not walking: who's the "cheat" now, Verandah?
In short: bad losers, worse winners.
In the vernacular: front runners, soft cocks.
