Thursday, August 24, 2006

What's wrong in calling a spade a spade!!!

The past week had seen a major crisis in the world of cricket. It all started when a certain Australian umpire called Hair had the guts to judge the entire Pakistani cricket team as cheats in front of millions of viewers. The repercussions have been huge ever since, ones that could destroy the very spirit of the game. Ones that could draw a racial divide. Was he right in doing like that so publicly or should he have waited till the end of the day and taken the matter to the match referee? I personally believe that Hair was spot on here. He did what he had to do. If he felt that the ball was being tampered and believe me I am not surprised at all as the Pakis are well known in the cricketing circles for this, there was no point in waiting for the day to get over. The game could have been well over by then with England crushing to a defeat that they can ill afford just before the ashes. If Hair is indeed a biased person, he would have let the game go on as it would only benefit his Aussie team to face a defeated England side.

The ICC was right in pulling up Inzy for all the fuss created by his team. For God sake there were thousands of viewers at the ground who had spent their hard earned money on the game and Inzy just disregards them?? This is unacceptable and Inzy should be severely punished for this. As far as the media is concerned , I think it went over board in supporting Pakis. This shouldn't surprise anyone as such a stance only dramatises the situation which would mean higher viewership/readership. Parallels were drawn with the Murali's incident which I thought was a cheap shot. The issue was buried years ago and a lot has changed after that. Personally though, I still believe Murali is chucker though not 'technically' as ICC would put it.

Things should be clearer once ICC reveals Hair's side. I see an embarassed Paki side after that. Come on, reverse swing on a pitch that had grass on it and that too in the cloudiest of the climates? Gimme a break Inzy. You guys cheated and you should pay for it.

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