Strong words from me today. It has more to do with an abject feeling of helplessness – reminds me of the Paki tours of the 80s when Shakoor Rana and Khizar Hayat held sway on visiting Indian teams. Steve Bucknor is much much worse though. He is a much better umpire and free from political considerations as compared to the Pakistani ones of the 80s. The decisions he has given and not given are terrible, more so since he is supposed to belong to the elite panel of umpires and also because he has much more international experience.
His gaffes are inexcusable. Mark Benson on the other hand has gone out of his way to placate the Aussies. Imagine asking Ponting and Micheal Clarke before ruling Ganguly out. Imagine Clarke hanging on after top edging the ball to first slip. Ponting claiming a catch when he had clearly grassed it - this from a team that has won 15 in a row. The supposed best team in the world, ready to sacrifice the game that they love at the altar of victory. Is winning all that important? Is this what the modern age all about? The famed Aussie team – ready to abandon all morality in their blind hunger to win?
Shameful really shameful. We Indians are never scared to lose. We’ve lost throughout our chequered history. We don’t care too hoots about defeat. That one 20-20 world cup win is worth 100 defeats let me tell you. However, the
You can rule Dravid out off the pad, you can give Symonds four lives and Hussey three, but we are no longer the helpless, hapless nation of the 80s. The
We have Sharad Pawar, Rajiv Shukla and Niranjan Shah. The ICC better watch out or their ass will be grass. I won’t be surprised if more actions take place this time. Commercially we control the game. Psychologically cricket is our life and we won’t let anyone mess with us this time.
Beware Bucknor and clones – we Indians don’t only play night cricket with two balls, ours are tempered with steel and they will break immoral bones, if need be.
