Team India gets, er, ‘tough’

Just when we were getting the idea that cricket was not only about gentlemanly behaviour but whatever it takes to win, we start knocking on the door of the staff room to complain, writes Ishan Chaudhuri.

It could be a good strategy, but frankly, it has the hallmark of whining all over it. The Indian media — seemingly more patriotic than Subhas Chandra Bose and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi put together — is going on and on about how the patience of the Indian cricket team, under constant verbal assault from the Aussies, is wearing thin. Meanwhile, the team itself has decided to make a screeching U-turn from the mannish moves started under Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy, taken a few steps forward by Sreesanth’s literally in-you-face aggression, and made into an iconic moment by Harbhajan Singh’s ma ki only son, Harbhajan Singh in the Australia-India Test series.

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Now, with the team management ‘acting tough’ by sending off a letter to the match referee of the ongoing tri-series expressing ‘displeasure’ in the way the Aussies have been conducting themselves in the tournament, I smell a ‘Ma’am, ma’am, Ashu is saying bad words’ pre-school moment here.

Just when we were getting the idea that cricket was not only about gentlemanly behaviour but whatever it takes (under the scheme of the rules) to win, we start knocking on the door of the staff room to complain. Ishant Sharma being fined 15 per cent of his match fee for ‘showing’ Andrew Symond the Aussie dressing after dismissal in the Sydney one-dayer was apparently the provocation. Nope, says Team India. It was agent provocateur Symonds who started things by abusing Sharma.