Sledging
Australians have been well known sledgers: they call it friendly banter, but not only A...
Expand
Sledging
Australians have been well known sledgers: they call it friendly banter, but not only Asians but even whites S Africans and others have felt the slings and arrows of Aussie unsportsmanship
It is not friendly banter, when Ganguly goes in to bat and while he takes guard, Glenn McGrath from one of the slips asks Ganguly how is Naghma(when there were reports about Ganguly making trips with the actress) is that legitimate banter, or is it mental disintegration ? Is bastard acceptable while monkey(if the allegation against Harbhajan is true) is not. I understand the the abusive tit for tat between Symonds and Bhajji began with Symonds abusing the latter for his behavior vis a vis Brett Lee. If Brett felt aggrieved it was up to him or Ponting to take up the matter with Kumble or the umpires. Who was Symonds, to come into the act ? What about McGrath calling Sarwan and Jayasuriya, black monkeys ? Is it all right for McGrath to abuse all and sundry and make jokes about Ganguly's alleged extra marital behavior, but take umbrage at Sarwan dragging Mcgrath's wife into an argument. What is Sauce for the Goose............
The Aussies should realize that it is NOT Pax Australiana, it never was. A nation of ten plus million cannot dictate what is acceptable behavior to an estimated 1.5 billion cricketing public. If they do, it will be the death knell of global cricket as we know it now.But who are they to do it ? Australian's are brash and relatively elemental in their behavior: if they behave in that manner, they should not react to people giving it back in the way there own culture dictates. In India, Bandar is an acceptable epithet to denote
unacceptable behavior, while in Australia, particularly at someone who looks like Symonds it smacks of racism. But what about McGrath and what about Lehmann calling
Sri Lankans black c---s? Sauce for the Goose ?
If the Australian's want to continue to act the way they do, to continue their hoary traditions, they should Indians to follow theirs, that were traditions probably two thousand years before the Aussie's landed on the shores of Australia originally as criminals, being transported to the colonies. And white referees like Proctor and white wannabee's such as Bucknor, cannot apply white rules which allow untrammelled Aussie behavior, but applying humiliating raps at knuckles ,at Indian retaliation.The BCCI might want things to slide by, but the Indian public will not and the sooner that a set of rules on so called sledging are written, the better. And these rules should not be colored by what Aussies accept as their God given, lingua franca.
In my view, extreme sledging practices at Indians, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, who are culturally not attuned to the insults that it ladles out, is a form of racism.It is obscene when Mike Proctor says that the word of Australian counts for more than the word of an Indian, in the absence of any corroborated evidence. Mr. Proctor, You said that you lived through apartheid, if I remember right, you played cricket during apartheid, where non whites were not counted as quite human. I also remember that India stood with the ANC and Nelson Mandela and refused to play two Davis Cup Tennis Finals(Challenge rounds) against S Africa to show solidarity with non white S Africans. It is the height of arrogance to arrogate to yourself the mantle of a fighter against racism, when your background has not been above suspicion.
Unacceptable Cricketing Behavior
Excessive Appealing, Not Walking when clearly out and cheating on grounded catches might be acceptable winning behavior in Aussieland, but it is not in international cricket. If I were BCCI I will get the ICC to agree to ground rules being codified later, before we agree to playing any more tests against Australia. These rules which will include at a minimum.
(1) Banning offensive sledging from cricket: Any offensive statements by cricketers must be given the utmost publicity and the player must be banned from matches if such attacks can be proven. What sledging behavior is unacceptable will be clear when personal attacks are publicized. The sledging law MUST be culturally fair or neutral.
(2) Excessive Appealing: A methodology has to be worked out using technology.
(3) The hegemony of Western and Western oriented umpires of the Caribbean kind
must be broken. In case of a S Asian team, at least either one umpire or the match referee must be S Asian. If we looked at S Asian teams playing in Australia, my suspicion is that more often than not the umpires are generally white or Windy white wannabe's. It would be useful if somebody could check.
Also, to prevent a cabal consisting of the Aussie team and sympathetic umpires ganging up : the principle employed should be that if a team disagrees with an umpire's decision, technology should be used to either uphold or negate a decision. If the team appeals too many times where the technology did not uphold their appeal, they could be hauled up as excessive appealers.
Anglos Saxon rule is generally dead the world over, and anglo saxon rule of the offensive Australian kind, is hegemony without the cultural sheen that the British employed. Both were/are unacceptable. Australians and the Anglo Saxon centric ICC should keep Rudyard Kipling's famous admonition to the English, in their relations with India( and by extension with the third world of cricket)in mind while formulating future policy:
- Naulahka
Now it is not good for the Christian's health
To hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles,
And it weareth the Christian down.
And the end of the fight
Is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased
And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here
who tried to hustle the East."
Close
Thank You Raju: Sorry for the delay in answering I just saw your posting. No Australian
has been taken to account for mentally attacking the opponents. One way Ozzie's have got away with it is to pack the match officials with white umpires or white wannabe umpires such as Bucknor. The same way the match referees are also mostly white. If one analysed the selections(and I think the ICC could be complicit here) of matches in Australia and umpires and referees I suspect you will get a pattern.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Can not but agree to the main blog and the comments. The sheer amount of double standards that prevail stuns me. The only place which I have seen in a relatively smaller dose is probably US. I have been in Philippines and was very comfortable - never felt that I was an alien there. I happen to work with clients based in the West and I can say that with certain amount of authority that what is good for the goose is not good for gander...the white people can not take when they are given a dose of their own medicine by an oriental. GG is right on all counts when he quotes the various events. Am not sure whether Glen McGrath was fined or punished for his big bully tactics. Mike Procter, I believe, acted in a very stupid manner - brushing aside common sense. Thanks GC.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Cricketluva: Thank you for resurrecting my post on Aussie sledging: I think the BCCI is pussy footing with Australia. A barnyard bully like Hayden should not be allowed to get away with the kind of racist nonsense he was spouting. In fac t in the same radio show, he was making fun of poor Ishant Sharma's accent. Taking on an 19 year old kid in his first assay in Internartional cricket
andc ridiculing his accent is a kind of low that the aussie bully(probably only one word in the previous two is really necessary) is capable of. The mix of Yobbo criminals and misfits and Abrogine murderers that peopled Australia, left behind an accent that is nothing to be proud of: someone needs to point that out to the likes of Mr Hayden.
Reply | | Report Abuse
The australians are entirely vicious thugs and hypocrites. They cannot win unless they sledge. They cannot but harass people to death and no matter what they won't shut up.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Gaurav: I think the BCCI is the guilty party for too long: they should not go on to play until they sign an agreement on the ground rules for the next tests and ODI's which should contain at a minimum:
a Protocol on infield Behavior
A Protocol on using technology to confirm or negate decision based upon appral by the so called aggrieved team
By the way, I think it is right that Harbhajanshould be talked to about his behavior, but Symonds must also be reprimanded for his aggression towards Bhajji. However, Bhajji needs to be talked to(by Team India) but NOT given a penalty by ICC as there is no corroborative evidence to do that and a match referee must not take action on the basis of "he said and then he said" out of earshot of witnesses.
Reply | | Report Abuse
GG: Great energy and purpose here. Agree, definitive measures should be taken, but first ICC, CA and BCCI need to collectively solve the current impasse. It's an opportunity to act like adults, and ensure the teams behave with maturity.
regards, gaurav
Reply | | Report Abuse
Avinash: There is a lot of hypocrisy to go around: You have McGrath talking about decency where he has been the poster child of indecency all his adult life. You have Ricky Ponting the worst hypocrite of them all saying "What me cheating ? When the entire nation of viewers watched him cheat for all to see. The Australian Emperor has NO clothes and the whole world is aghast.
Gopal
Reply | | Report Abuse
Girdhar,
A very good post. Especially the poem at the end and the bit about Mike Proctor. I too felt the same when he tried to arrogate to himself the position of someone who had suffered from apartheid.
Avinash
Reply | | Report Abuse
Eye for an eye GG.
If an Aussie or anyone hurls an insult, they have to expect retribution.
I bristle not only when a White man or a woman calls me "exotic" but also when a Pakistani mentions my Hinduism as a slur.
So no insults from Whites or Non Whites, period, as accepting Pakistani taunts as ribbing and Aussie comments as racism is double speak.
Back off world, leave us be our own sovereign people, accepting our own sovereignty after millenia of muzzled freedom and dormant self expression, and those who aren't prepared be prepared for explosions and eruptions for this emotional lava has been percolating beyond boiling for a very long time.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Hi Girdhar,
You said it, as of now it seems what Aussie practice is the spirit of cricket and what the whole world knows is not by the spirit of the game.To hell with it.
Good one.
Raja
Reply | | Report Abuse