BCCI asks players to behave after रोNEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Indian cricket board (BCCI) has told its players in Australia to behave themselves after the row involving spinner Harbhajan Singh overshadowed an exciting test series, its secretary Niranjan Shah said on Thursday।
"We have already asked the players, given them instructions not to get into such type of altercations," Shah told Reuters, adding that he expected India to put the controversy behind them for the remainder of the tour।
On Tuesday, International Cricket Council (ICC) appeals commissioner John Hansen downgraded the charges against Harbhajan from racial abuse against Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds to using abusive language due to a lack of evidence।
The off-spinner consequently escaped a three-match suspension and was fined half his match fee for the second test in Sydney, where the incident took place।
The Indian board threatened to abandon the tour if the racial abuse charges stuck and the ICC was left red-faced when Hansen revealed Harbhajan got away lightly because officials informed him of only one of the player's four prior offences।
Shah rejected heavy criticism, especially by the Australian media, that the Indian board flexed its financial muscle and held the game to ransom।
"It was a fair judgement," Shah said. "We don't have to go by what the Australian media says. We've gone by the procedure put in place by the ICC and we accept the judgement."
Bhajji breathes a sigh of relief
Melbourne, Jan। 30: "I am very happy, the right decision was made. I am glad it’s over," said off-spinner Harbhajan Singh as the Indians landed at the Tullamarine Airport here in Wednesday afternoon and added he was relieved that he has been cleared of the racial abuse charge brought against him during the Sydney Test.
Later, asked at nets at the Melbourne Cricket Ground here on Wednesday evening if there had been a party, Harbhajan said: "There’s nothing to celebrate। We didn’t win the series, did we?"
At Tullamarine, Harbhajan was given tighter security as the Indian ODI team landed in the afternoon and he was escorted to the team bus ahead of the drive into Melbourne and to the Langham Hotel, the Indians’ bases from the earlier, happier days of the tour Down Under.
Meanwhile, reborn opener Virender Sehwag finds himself on top of the list of choices for the T20 game at the MCG here and for the Commonwealth Bank tri-series that will follow Friday’s game at the MCG।
Coach-in-waiting Gary Kirsten paid particular attention to the Najafgarh Nawab at nets at the WACA ground in Perth ahead of third Test that India won in historic fashion and thereafter added a battling 151 in the drawn fourth and final Test at Adelaide that ended on Monday.
At Perth, Kirsten paid particular attention to Sehwag, finetuning aspects of the dashing right-hander’s batting that could help him overcome his obvious deficiencies in footwork, especially against the faster bowlers।
"Come at me with your head," Kirsten called repeatedly during a series of throw-downs he held especially for Sehwag and fellow-opener Wasim Jaffer.
While the latter continued to sink under the weight of his uncertainties, Sehwag thrived। The outcome was a series aggregate of 286 at 71.50 and he is now poised to play a role in India’s ODI schedule in the immediate future with Yuvraj Singh ruled out till at least the second of India’s matches at Brisbane next week.
Roebuck, who called for Ponting's head, slams India for crude, 'naked aggression'Hard-hitting cricket columnist Peter Roebuck, who had called for Ricky Ponting's head for his poor leadership during the dramatic final moments of the Sydney Test that Australia won, has now hit out at the Indian cricket establishment for setting a "dreadful precedent" in their handling of the Harbhajan Singh controversy.
"India's performance in chartering a plane to take the players back home in the event of an independent judge finding against them in the Harbhajan Singh case counted amongst the most nakedly aggressive actions taken in the history of a notoriously fractious game। If this is the way the Indian board intends to conduct its affairs hereafter, then God help cricket," Roebuck wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald.
"It is high time the elders of the game in that proud country stopped playing to the gallery and considered the game's wider interests। India is not some tin pot dictatorship but an international powerhouse, and ought to think and act accordingly. Brinkmanship or not, threatening to take their bat and ball home in the event of a resented verdict being allowed to stand was an abomination. It sets a dreadful precedent. What price justice now?" asked Roebuck before calling Harbhajan "a hothead with an unpleasant tongue".
The former Somerset captain, widely respected in world cricket circles for his reading of the game, then digs to two earlier instances where the Australians could have felt aggrieved in India.
Australia "were entitled to take a stand and demand a hearing - especially after their disgraceful treatment by the crowd and a local umpire in Mumbai not long ago (not to mention in Kolkata in 2004) last October," he wrote।
Roebuck's reference to the Kolkata TVS Cup tri-series final in 2003-04 where Australia won by 37 runs is vague because most of the decisions taken by the two umpires A V Jayaprakash (India) and David Shepherd (England) did not give rise to any debate. And as far as the crowd there goes, Roebuck, who was present to cover that match, had written then: "A final at Eden is bigger - in terms of atmosphere - than a final at Lord's or the MCG. Why? The people."
But his reference to the local umpire in Mumbai is no surprise। Be it the dubious decision on Brad Hogg (caught at short-leg) or the Murali Kartik caught-behind appeal that was turned down, Australia can rightfully claim to have got a raw deal from Indian umpire Amish Saheba.
Eventually, the visitors lost the game by two wickets, with the ninth-wicket partnership of 53 runs between Kartik and Zaheer Khan seeing India through।
To top it all, Mumbai made headlines in a rather ugly way, with a section of the crowd snapped on camera making monkey gestures at Andrew Symonds। Symonds in Sydney had claimed that Harbhajan had racially abused him by calling him a "monkey" - the charge was downgraded yesterday after the ICC appeals panel said it could not be proved.
In his latest column, Roebuck also came down hard on attempts by Cricket Australia and BCCI to "broker a compromise" on the Harbhajan issue। "All around, it has been a bad business. Over the years, India have often been represented by gentlemen with high principles and a strong sense of sportsmanship. Australia have not been so fortunate. But it seems that power has corrupted. It was intolerable that India's one-day players were sent to Adelaide when they ought to have been practising hard in Melbourne," he wrote. "It was not an implied threat to the justice system. It was a direct challenge to it. India took part in the creation of the legal framework they disregarded. If the Indians had packed their bags, Australia should have refused to appear in India next season," he added.
Roebuck's earlier column in the same newspaper after the Sydney Test had sparked worldwide furore when he called for an "arrogant" Ponting to resign for turning "a bunch of professional cricketers into a pack of wild dogs". Roebuck was objecting to Australia's over-aggressive attitude in a match scarred by bad umpiring.
