The Doosra - Cricket Blog - Times Online - WBLG

The Monkey and Your Mother

Justice John Hansen's judgment following Harbhajan Singh's appeal hearing in Adelaide runs to 22 pages and 8040 words. As is the case with most legal documents, it's not easy to read, but the salient points are there for anyone to come across.

First, Hansen tries to establish what led to the incident between Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds. "It is clear that Mr Lee bowled an excellent yorker to Mr Singh who was fortunate to play the ball to fine leg," he writes.

The U-turn is complete

Read the post then cast your vote below to the poll: who is the real power in international cricket?

And so, after the threat of a three-match ban for Harbhajan Singh and the Indian team pulling out of the one-day series, the circus moves on to Melbourne with the charges of racist abuse dropped and Mike Proctor's credibility torn to shreds. It also reopens an old can of worms about the pressure that individual boards exert when one of their own is fined or banned under the ICC Code of Conduct.

It happened at The Oval with Pakistan and Darrell Hair, and before that with India and Mike Denness at Port Elizabeth in 2001. The BCCI were within their rights to complain about the abysmal standard of umpiring in Sydney, but the resultant threats to pull out were puerile and unedifying, and only reinforced the neutral's view of the Indian board being cricket's answer to Chelsea Football Club, nouveau riche and lacking class.

Sehwag and Lee hint at bright future

Two seats down from me in the press box, Damien Fleming kept shaking his head in amazement. "What were they thinking?" he asked. "How could they leave him out of the first two Tests?" The man he referred to had got to three figures in exhilatrating fashion, not having played any part at Melbourne and Sydney. Four years ago, Virender Sehwag clattered an astonishing 195 in five hours at the MCG, in the middle of a purple patch when he was perhaps the most feared opening batsman in the game.

Ineffectual Harbhajan needs to prove his worth

Only two bowlers in this series have a strike-rate above 100. One is Ishant Sharma, whose figures of 6 for 358 (strike-rate of 101) are ample evidence that numbers taken in isolation mean absolutely nothing. Both at the WACA in Perth and here at the Adelaide Oval, Ishant was magnificent in spells, beating the bat with pace and late swing and the steep bounce that he gets as a result of being NBA-tall.

Swansong for the great entertainer

On a day when India managed to restrict Australia to just 260 runs, and Matthew Hayden nudged and drove his way to a 30th Test century in only his 94th game, it would have taken a special player to steal the limelight. But Adam Gilchrist did just that by announcing the end of a Test career without parallel. A day after he went past Mark Boucher for the greatest number of dismissals by a wicketkeeper, Gilchrist chose to walk before he was pushed. There will be no 100th Test. Instead, the Oval will be sold out on Sunday to honour perhaps the greatest allrounder that the game has seen since Sir Garfield Sobers.

Spin twins have a batting day out

For India to have any chance of squaring the series at Adelaide, Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble were going to have to do something special. But even the most optimistic fan couldn't have expected that they'd do Australian hopes so much harm with the bat. When they came together with the score 359 for 7, Ricky Ponting must have harboured hopes of batting before lunch.

Tendulkar ton in Bradman's backyard

Sachin Tendulkar (left) contributed 37 to the final-day run chase, but it's for two magic deliveries to Damien Martyn and Steve Waugh that he's remembered when talk turns to 2003 and Rahul Dravid's Test. As at Kolkata in 2001, his role in an epic triumph was restricted to the second string on his bow. The first barely had a note played on it.

Adelaide musings

Of the 22 men that fought out an enthralling Test match four years ago, only 10 will be make their way on to the Adelaide Oval tomorrow. Some like Steve Waugh have retired, while others like Ajit Agarkar discovered that one swallow doesn't a summer make. Brad Williams went off to paint houses, while Ashish Nehra never reached the heights he scaled on a Durban night when he swung out six English batsmen and threw up a banana.

End of one-day road for legends?

The selectors will never come out and say it, but it's becoming more and more apparent that Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly may have joined VVS Laxman by the wayside in one-day cricket. Emboldened by the manner in which a young side outplayed all-comers in the T20 World Cup, they've decided to gamble on youth for the CB Series. So while the likes of Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Anil Kumble go home, youngsters like Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar and Rohit Sharma fly in. There's also place for Suresh Raina, whose international career stalled in 2006 after such a promising start

India's greatest win ever?

Having been fortunate enough to have been at all of India's greatest wins in the new millennium (Headingley 2002 was the lone exception), it's perhaps natural that the mind tries to place the victory in context. Given what happened in the build-up to the game, it's inevitable that it will always have a special place in Indian cricket lore. But is it the greatest victory ever? Vote in the poll below.

Another streak ended by Laxman magic?

Immortality will now have to be earned. Almost seven years ago in Kolkata, one Australian winning streak stopped at 16 as VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Harbhajan Singh shredded the script over the final two days. Here, an inexperienced pace attack and an unheralded lower order pushed them further and further adrift of sweet 17. There was a common thread though, batting as elegantly as ever. VVS Laxman loves playing Australia, and if India do go on and win this game, his 79 will rank far higher than most hundreds made by Indian batsmen in 76 years of Test cricket.

The champion and his cubs

Let's put things into perspective first. Australia haven't lost at the WACA to non-West Indian opposition since Richard Hadlee was in his prime in 1985-86. They've not lost a home Test since Adelaide 2003, or a match anywhere since the narrow defeat at Trent Bridge that cost them the Ashes in 2005. India have only ever won four Tests in Australia, two of them against full-strength opposition. To say that they were long shots before this WACA Test would be an understatement, but as they did at the Wanderers in December 2006, they've saved their best performance for when they were apparently down and out.

Indomitable Australia reel India in

It will rankle deeply with the Indians tonight that the advantage they had fought so hard to establish was squandered by poor strokes from three of the most experienced men in the squad. Sourav Ganguly set the tone with a slap that didn't make it past Michael Hussey at gully, and Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman followed suit with terrible miscues across the line. Dravid's heave at Andrew Symonds saw him fall seven short of a century, and he admitted afterwards that it was one of those strokes that "makes you look stupid" if it doesn't come off.

India face trial by pace

The last time India played at the WACA, Kapil Dev - in his last great series - went past 400 wickets and an 18-year-old Sachin Tendulkar scripted a century for the ages. They still lost by 300 runs, with Mike Whitney, the supposed weak link in a four-man pace attack, picking up 11 for the match. That match, like sepia-tinted photographs, belongs to another era, a time before Australian invincibility when loose-limbed fast bowlers and dashing batsmen in maroon caps still ruled the game.

Cricket's bad boys

Sydney's Daily Telegraph probably didn't realise that they were playing into Indian hands with this hatchet-job on India's disciplinary record. If anything, the "cricket sinners" list that they have drawn up based on offences under the ICC's code of conduct only reinforces the subcontinent view that players from the region are treated far more harshly than those from other countries.

Time to gamble on Sehwag

Few that watched it will ever forget Virender Sehwag's Boxing Day special in 2003. After having his helmet used for target practice in the early stages, he opened out after lunch to play one of the most destructive innings you'll ever see, careering to 195 in just five hours before a leg-side heave fell short of the six that would have taken him past 200.

Ganguly, and the Australian way

It was his dismissal, to a low catch or bump ball - depending on where your prejudices lie - that sparked the huge debate about Australia and the spirit of cricket. But less than a week after that controversial final day at the SCG, Sourav Ganguly was in conciliatory mood. The man who put some steel into Indian cricket during his days as captain admits that he's a fan of the way Australia plays its cricket.

A gentlemen's agreement?

The days go by, and the statements keep coming. And after looking like it was powerless in the face of the Indian board's financial might, it's the ICC's turn to make a stand today. Malcolm Speed, the CEO, is adamant that India will have to abide by the decision reached by John Hansen, the New Zealand High Court judge who will hear Harbhajan Singh's appeal.

"India have signed off on the appeals process," said Speed. "They were there when all the discussions took place. We can't have one set of rules for the India team and another set for everyone else. We will follow the process and and I hope, whatever the outcome all parties will be able to say they have had a fair hearing."

To sledge or not to sledge?

I once asked Michael Holding if the fearsome West Indian pace quartet had ever sledged the opposition with a view to gaining an advantage. First, he grinned. Then, in that lovely Jamaican drawl, he said: "No, maan, we had this to intimidate them with." He was holding an imaginary cricket ball in his hand.

The show must go on

During the infamous Bodyline tour of 1932-33, Douglas Jardine knocked on the Australian dressing-room door to demand an apology for being abused. Bill Woodfull turned to his team poker-faced and asked: "Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?" Had they been around, Mike Procter and other ICC match referees might have had a field day.

Do Australia play outside the spirit of the game?

Cast your vote in our online poll.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Echoes of Bodyline

When this tour began, many nursed the fond hope that it might match the 2001 series between these sides or the 2005 Ashes. Instead, after a couple of spiteful days in Sydney, it's in danger of becoming cricket's biggest crisis since Bodyline. The BCCI's reaction to Harbhajan Singh's three-match ban on racism charges even includes the same national-pride rhetoric that came out of Australia in 1932-33 when Douglas Jardine went to work on leg theory.

Burning bridges

Status Quo may not agree, but sport at its finest has always been about building bridges. At its best, it's about an SCG crowd giving Sachin Tendulkar a standing ovation, the Anfield faithful clapping Watford off the park after an upset win, and a huge sailor from the northeast of England tucking a North Korean player under his arm after the upset victory against Italy at Ayresome Park [1966].  Over a couple of days at the SCG, that indefinable spirit which draws so many to the sporting arena, has been spat on, and both teams have been guilty. What should have been dealt with then and there has now snowballed into an issue that could dwarf the Mike Denness controversy, which also involved an Indian team.

Sweet sixteen sour for some

The touch of class after a controversy-ridden final day was provided by Anil Kumble. Even as the Australians celebrated the final wicket and a 16th consecutive Test win, Kumble, who had battled so bravely for 45, waited inside the boundary rope to shake hands with them. The umpiring bloopers that contributed to the Indian defeat will undoubtedly have repercussions, but for Kumble, there would be no compromise on the spirit of the game.

Is Australia's winning streak over?

Inclement weather and some disciplined Indian spin bowling later in the day stemmed Australia's batting tide as the Sydney Test drifted towards a draw. Given the Indian tradition of last-day collapses, nothing can be taken for granted, but for the moment, it does appear as though the streak of 16 consecutive wins under Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist [captained in one Test] is safe. Anil Kumble caused a frisson of excitement with two wickets in two balls late in the evening, but by then even some home fans were chanting: "Boring, boring."

Sticks and stones...

When Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds get together, things happen. The pair have created headlines for the wrong reasons before, and the latest incident could see Harbhajan serving a ban that might rule him out for the remainder of the series. Back in October, after being subjected to heckling and abuse from crowds at certain Indian centres, Symonds suggested that Harbhajan and Sreesanth were the primary instigators of sledging on the field. The Indian view was that Symonds was no angel himself, overeager to march up to the batsmen from cover to have his say.

A day for legends

At the press conference after the day's play, I asked Brett Lee where he'd put Sachin Tendulkar on a list of the batsmen he'd played against. His answer was brevity itself: "Number one," he said, without the slightest hesitation. On a day that started with one of the greats, Richie Benaud, being honoured with a bronze statue on the SCG premises (above), it was quite fitting that one of the modern masters embellished his legend on the ground where Victor Trumper and Sir Don Bradman played some of their finest innings.

Beauty and the Beast

Not since The Beauty and the Beast could you have seen two characters in more disparate roles. The elegance and class of VVS Laxman was buttressed by the sheer grit of Rahul Dravid, whose 160-ball vigil was as admirable as it was often ugly. More than six years ago, they added 376 at the Eden Gardens to turn a series on its head. Today, the partnership was 200 less, but still managed to open a window into the game and give Ricky Ponting something to think about.

Time for cricket to embrace modernity

As ripostes go, this was magnificent, with Andrew Symonds and Brad Hogg adding 173 at such a clip that they might just have taken the game away from India. But for all the spirit they showed, the Indians can't be blamed if they wonder what might have been had Steve Bucknor cut short Symonds' innings on 30, when he got the thickest of outside edges off Ishant Sharma. Australia were 193 for 6 at the time, and a close-of-play score of 376 for 7 would only have been a chimera if Symonds had departed.

Is Australian dominance bad for the game?

For a team that simply cannot afford to lose in Sydney - Greased Lightning awaits at the WACA - India's preparations for the New Year Test have been far from ideal. A damaging story in The Age about Yuvraj Singh and alleged indiscipline broke a couple of days ago, and fitness worries over Zaheer Khan and Sourav Ganguly have further muddied the thought process. There was also a brief flirtation with Virender Sehwag in the nets, but the decision to leave him out of the 13 only gives strength to the voices that ask why he was picked in the first place.