Category: India

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Surprising loss but no hint of foul play

WHEN Australia played Zimbabwe in the World Cup cricket tournament preliminary rounds, the openers, Shane Watson and Brad Haddin, took an awful amount of time to score their runs.

Haddin, one of the more adventurous openers in one-day cricket, took 66 balls to make 29 while Watson made 79 off 92 balls. Their opening stand of 61 took 18.5 overs.

As a result, soon after the match the International Cricket Conference. world cricket’s governing body, began an investigation to see whether the slow scoring had been done to aid the good work done by bookies in the subcontinent.

Spot betting is big business during tournaments of this kind and the Australian pair is not normally known for anything other than aggression.

The story was broken by an Indian paper, the Indian Express, and made big news all over the cricketing world.

As it turned out, there was smoke, but no fire and everything settled down as well as it can when a cricket tournament is being played in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

As the tournament is still running through its preliminary games, most of which are quite lopsided as they pit established sides against minnows, there was much interest last week when India played South Africa.

The Indian batsmen got off to a good start and at one stage the board read 267 for the loss of one wicket with about 13 overs left. The lower-end estimate by observers was that India would get 350. The more ambitious evaluations were that 400 was within reach.

But 29 runs later, India was all out. Most of the batsmen played really stupid strokes and threw away their wickets. The top three batsmen, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir scored 73, 111 and 69 respectively.

The remaining 43 runs were scored by other eight men in the team. South Africa, which has a reputation for being a side that chokes when confronted by a task such as it faced that day, held its nerve and chased down the 297 it needed for victory.

Surprisingly, nobody has even raised the possibility that there might have been something more in the game than just careless batting. It smacks of double standards.

Both countries involved have a history of being involved in match-fixing; India’s Mohammed Azharuddin, Ajay Sharma, Ajay jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar had to end their careers after being found guilty.

South Africa’s former captain, the late Hansie Cronje, was found guilty and two other South Africans, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje, have avoided going to India after Cronje was caught.

The ICC has not raised even an eyebrow at the way the Indian innings collapsed. Such are the mysterious ways of the world’s cricket administrators.

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ABC News 24 is a dismal failure

THEY call it ABC News 24. I call it ABC News 23. I think my nomenclature is more accurate since the ABC depends on the BBC to fill up an hour of its news broadcasts late at night, the 1am and 2am slots. But even at those late hours, the BBC tends to highlight what’s wrong with the ABC’s 24-hour effort and exactly how pathetic the latter is.

For one, the ABC’s footage from abroad is always stale. One never gets to see more than one turnover every 24 hours. Indeed, it often goes to 30 or even 36 hours. With a 24-hour channel, one depends on coverage of foreign news quite a bit – there isn’t that much happening on the domestic front.

And the ABC is ill-equipped to cope with such a channel. The spread of correspondents is very thin – for example, one person looks after South Asia, a region where nearly a quarter of humanity lives. This region encompasses two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, that are crucial to the future of the West. Afghanistan is a country under partial Western occupation and Pakistan is terrorism central.

Being the only Muslim state that has nuclear weapons, Pakistan is of great significance news-wise. If any other state in the region or the Middle East does obtain nukes, you can be sure that Pakistan will be the source. Yet, the ABC has no full-time correspondent there. Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence controls events in Afghanistan but the ABC, which claims to champion good old-fashioned news values, does not rate it important enough to station someone in Islamabad.

And let’s not forget India which is some kind of a bulwark to these countries. It is impossible for one person to spread themselves across this terrain and do anything like justice. Most of the time the correspondent, Sally Sara, is reduced to reading scripts from agency wires while stale footage creeps across the screen.

The ABC News 24 network appears to be a product of the ego of the corporation’s managing director, Mark Scott. He swore to implement it using the available staff. But the ABC is now cutting support staff in various bureaux abroad and also expecting increased output. The gruel will be spread thinner by the addition of water. Never mind if it tastes bad.

Another thing that Scott has championed is the airing of opinion: he obviously feels that ABC staff should have a site where they voice their opinions. Hence the Drum was born. It compromises ABC staff to a large extent as they, being employees of a government-funded body, are not expected to show political bias when it comes to reporting. Yet, via their opinion pieces, their biases are on open display.

The Drum also makes its appearance on the 24-hour TV channel and illustrates the old adage – you can’t make a carpenter out of a plumber, they are two different trades. Steve Cannane, an extremely competent radio broadcaster, is a tepid and boring interlocutor on the program, stiff and evidently uncomfortable and out of place.

The main contributor to the Drum, Annabel Crabb, is also unsuited for television; she was recruited as chief writer for the Drum website and does an excellent job there but her long-winded sentences do not work on television. She ends up monopolising the program and, even then, often cannot complete what she means to say. She is periodically cut off in mid-sentence by Cannane who appears to be obsessed with trying to discuss X number of topics on a given day. Result? The discussion lacks any depth.

The guests on the Drum are, by and large, a boring lot too; even when there are people who can be a bit unconventional (like the chaps from the Chaser, for example), everyone tends to take a cue from Cannane and it becomes boredom central. Members of the Institute of Public Affairs, a right-wing think-tank (stink-tank would be more accurate) appear to have a kind of permanent booking for one seat on the Drum and, as most right-wingers do, tend to make the program as dull as ditchwater.

The way staff have been allocated jobs on News 24 is evidence of hasty decision-making. Virginia Trioli, one of the best and brightest in the ABC, one who can interview people with charm and ferocity, one who has more than a passing knowledge of world affairs, is reduced to reading the news. And then there’s Aly Moore who tends to regard the studio as she does her sofa at home – nothing else can account for the way she tends to lounge on the news desk every few minutes. Moore should always be behind a camera and needs some voice training to tone down the squeakiness of her delivery.

Competing with Cannane for the title of wooden man of 24-hour channels is sports news reader Paul Kennedy. In fact, Kennedy may well have the edge on Cannane. Sport is heavily Sydney-centric, reflecting the traditional bias that led to the nation’s capital being built in Canberra. Kennedy often seems to be operating in the past tense, so frozen is he, something like an animal caught in the glare of headlights.

The hurry with which the ABC set up News 24 is evident in some of the names it has chosen for its programmes. Al Jazeera has a interview programme called One On One; the ABC could do no better than pinch and modify it to One Plus One. This is just one example. One Plus One could also have given its host, Jane Hutcheon, some voice training to speak on a lower key. It grates on the ear.

One lesson that the ABC could have learned from Al Jazeera, which has grown to be a great success because of the journalism it produces, was to pick its correspondents from the areas it covers. A man knows his own home much better than an outsider. But given that Scott pledged to set up the channel with no extra expenditure, the ABC is reduced to recyling and re-recycling. You see the same footage tagged differently on every news programme on the ABC – and it does have a fair few channels.

So what’s new about News 24? You can see Lateline and Lateline Business a few extra times. You can see the 7.30 Report again if you happen to be suffering from insomnia – and what’s more, you can see Four Corners and Media Watch on an HD channel. Forget the fact that the last two named programmes are repeated on the analog channel ABC1 as well.

And before I forget, you can also get the time from ABC News 24 because it has a digital clock on-screen. I find that the most useful bit of the channel as I do not possess a watch.

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Australia’s cricketing disaster

SHANE Warne, the Australian leg-spinner, was always keen to be captain of the national cricket team. Unfortunately, the Australian cricket administrators are obsessed with the idea that a man who leads the country’s cricket team should also be a saint. Warne did not get the job because of his numerous sexual peccadilloes and Ricky Ponting was given the gig instead.

That apparently still rankles because Warne often embarrasses Ponting with unsolicited advice and comments after he retired. The latest such episode occurred on the final day of the second Test against India, when Warne questioned the field placings provided for Nathan Hauritz, the alleged spinner in the Australian team.

India was chasing 207 to win on the final day of the Test. No team had ever scored that number of runs on the Bangalore wicket to win a Test until that day. Yet India did, with ease. The two Indian spinners, Harbhajan Singh and Pravin Ojha, had helped to bundle out Australia for 223 in its second innings. Both obtained a great deal of purchase from the wicket. The Indian fast bowlers obtained plenty of reverse swing. The Australian bowlers could not do a thing to trouble the Indians.

Australia is now ranked fifth among the nine countries that play Test cricket. It is below India, South Africa, Sri Lanka and even England. Calls are now starting for Ponting’s head. Warne’s comments thus assume a lot of significance.

One reason for Warne’s utterances may be the fact that Steve Smith, the spinner who has Warne’s backing, is yet to be picked for a Test ahead of Hauritz. This, despite the fact that in the first Test of the series against India, we had the peculiar situation of India fighting against the odds to chase down a total of 216 on the final day and Hauritz not bowling even though the pitch was taking turn. What made it even more odd was the fact that Smith was not in the team and Ponting’s spinner of choice was the occasional trundler Marcus North.

Australia rarely picks two spinners. Hence when one man is picked, it is assumed that he is the prime spin talent in the country. Hauritz, sadly, is not up to the mark; he is the poor man’s spinner and does not deserve to play. Ponting does not know how to handle him and that shows. Ponting’s failures are beginning to affect his batting as well.

The next opponent for Australia is the old foe – England. The Ashes which England holds are up for grabs in the Test series that begins in November. That is a matter for even more worry. Ponting won the last home series for the Ashes but promptly lost the next series in England. This was a repeat, as he had also lost the 2005 series.

A loss at home may well mean the loss of the captaincy as well. That could be a blessing for Ponting as he still has a lot to give as a batsman. He is still a class act in full flow. Whether he will be able to function under another captain remains to be seen. But he would do Australian cricket a service by stepping down and playing as a batsman instead.

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History tells us: the ICC must take the blame for match-fixing

IT WOULD be amusing to read all about the apportioning of blame by various people in the wake of the recent revelations about match-fixing, were it not for the fact that the whole thing is so damn serious. But then one should not be surprised about all the breast-beating that is going on – it is common for people to concentrate on the effects and forget the cause.

It does not take much effort to go back to the event that provided the seed for the growth of match-fixing in cricket. Remember, one is not talking about betting on cricket, that has been around for as long as the game has been played.

In 1980 the first international one-day cricket match was held in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. This was sanctioned by the International Cricket Council and it marked the start of trouble. The matches in Sharjah increased in number and India’s win in the 1983 World Cup gave the tournaments held in the desert emirate a fillip.

For one, the Sharjah tournaments were built on one factor – the enmity between India and Pakistan. There was always a third team invited (or even a fourth) to make up the numbers, but given the large numbers of Indian and Pakistani expatriates in the UAE, they were the focus.

Additionally, the Sharjah cricket organisers opened the doors to illegal betting of huge amounts by people of dubious reputations. Apart from the cricket, celebrities from both India and Pakistan were invited to attend. The UAE is a peculiar place – you can walk in to the country with a million dollars in a suitcase and no questions are asked but if you carry a Bible in, you may be questioned for an hour or more. Before oil came into the picture, Dubai was better known as the source of gold smuggling into India.

Both India and Pakistan have massive amounts of black money in their respective economies and lots of this money was used to wager large amounts in Sharjah. A great many dubious people offered awards in Sharjah to buy popularity and these were accepted without any hesitation – Pakistan batsman Javed Miandad earned more than a million dollars in 1986 when he hit a six off the last ball of a game to defeat India and win a tournament for Pakistan.

The UAE is known to harbour a number of people who are wanted in other parts of the world, people like the smuggler Dawood Ibrahim, who fled India in 1993 after he was being sought by police as a suspect in the bombing of the Bombay stock exchange that same year.

It is inconceivable that the ICC was unaware of all the goings-on but it chose to turn a blind eye. Cricketers were benefitting financially – the Sharjah organisers used to present three cricketers with money at every tournament – and the ICC was being paid the fees it sought. What’s more, any ICC bigwig who visited during the tournament was treated like God.

But the tournaments provided the means for illegal bookies and people of their ilk to gain access to players – one merely had to host a reception in Dubai for the cricketers (no liquor is served in hotels in Sharjah, hence the choice of Dubai which is just a 20-minute drive from Sharjah) during the tournament and one could pal up with the best players from India and Pakistan.

The money attracted other teams too and as the years went on the organisers scored their biggest coup by signing the West Indies, at that time the hottest property in world cricket. Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka all came and played and were feted and wined and dined. Nobody raised any question as to why cricket in the desert was needed. It was something like the Packer days again, only this time the ICC gave the whole shindig its blessing.

Prior to Sharjah, there was hardly any talk of throwing a game of cricket. It took a few years for the bookies to develop their contacts to the point where they could make demands. Sharjah began hosting two tournaments a year soon after it started operations and this provided a fast track for unsavoury activities to grow.

in the 1990s , there was more and more talk about matches being influenced by factors other than the players’ ability. On the Indian tour of the West Indies in 1997, one Test, when India fell for 81 when chasing a little over 100 for victory, was a game that came in for some examination. An Indian writer, R. Mohan of the well-known Indian paper, The Hindu, lost his job after his betting activities came to light. And by the turn of the century, a few cricketers had been found out and banned from the game.

It is easy to gain access to junior players once one knows the seniors. And mind you, the seniors need not be in the pay of bookies, but merely acquainted enough to be persuaded to introduce others to the men who pay cricketers to fix games. After all, if you were told that Al Capone wanted to meet you during the heyday of that gentleman’s existence, would you have turned it down?

The ICC never objected to cricket being played in Sharjah. The only reason why the tournaments are no longer being held there is because there is no space on the international calendar after the future tours programme was put into practice. The ICC has even shifted its own headquarters to Dubai – simply because it benefits from the no-tax regime in the UAE and also gets free flights from Emirates airline – which is owned by the ruling family of Dubai – for its officials. When an international body has sold itself out in this manner, can it ever hope to call attention to the wrong-doings of its players?

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Cricket is all about politics

SPORT and politics should not mix. How often have you heard that meaningless line? It is untrue of any sport – and most of all cricket.

Following the humiliation meted out to former Australian prime minister John Howard – the man was roundly snubbed by Asian and African cricketing nations in his bid to become the vice-president of the International Cricket Council – it is worthwhile having a look at the political implications of a sport like cricket.

The game was spread from Britain to its colonies at the time when the British Empire ruled the waves. It took hold in India (and by extension in Pakistan and Bangladesh when those nations were formed as breakaways), the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

When Australia and England play each other for the Ashes, there are deep political connotations – England shipped convicts to Australia as its first settlers and thus Australian resentment towards the former “mother country” knows no bounds. Beating England at any sport is welcome Down Under, but it is especially sweet when it is for the Ashes.

When India and Pakistan play cricket, it is something akin to war. Pakistan was stripped away from India in a ghastly act of partition, a result of Britain’s divide and rule policy, and that wound has never healed. So great is the animosity, that when Javed Miandad hit a six off the last ball of a one-day tournament in Sharjah to give Pakistan victory over India – and this was in a minor tournament – he was showered with riches by Pakistani businessmen.

Friendly games between Indian and Pakistani supporters can turn into violent confrontations in third countries like England – and have, on many occasions, become just that.

When Bangladesh plays Pakistan, there are again political overtones. Pakistan treated the former East Pakistan as though it was a slave colony and when it broke away, with India’s help, in 1971, Pakistan was mortally wounded. It was shamed in front of the world – at the moment when its UN envoy was claiming that things were under control, TV footage of the head of Pakistan’s army surrendering to Indian forces at Dhaka race course was being broadcast worldwide. These insults have never been forgotten. They carry over onto the cricket field.

Take the games between the West Indies, a team formed from among a group of islands in the Caribbean, and England. Many black people were shipped to the Caribbean as slaves by Britain back in the days when Britain ruled these islands. For former slaves to defeat their masters is a very satisfying thing – and to the West Indies defeating England is the most important thing in cricket. It does not matter even if they lose to minnows like Kenya.

Politics in cricket is deep-rooted and will never go away. Indeed, if it did, then the intensity of the sporting contests would decrease and the crowds who come to watch would dwindle. When brown and black people get the better of white people, it is always sweet, simply because of the way the West has dominated the East for so many years. Cricket is another substitute for war and it is probably a preferable outlet to fighting on the battlefield.

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Howard has been rejected, not Australia

WENDING his sorry way back from Singapore, after having been roundly snubbed by the International Cricket Conference after his bid to become the vice-president was rejected, former Australian prime minister John Howard is now trying to paint his rejection as a snub for Australia and New Zealand.

There is a one-word answer to this claim: bullshit.

It was the Australasian region’s chance to nominate a candidate and it was time for New Zealand to have a chance considering that, in the past, on both occasions when it was the region’s chance, an Australian took up the job – first Malcolm Gray and then Malcolm Speed. New Zealand had an excellent candidate, Sir John Anderson, a man who has worked with the ICC and shown remarkable aptitude as an administrator.

Howard claims that the cricket board of Australia approached him. This seems highly unlikely. What seems more likely is that Howard pulled a few strings in order to get his name put forward. He is a person who never wanted to leave public life; indeed, well before the 2007 elections, there were more than enough indications that if Howard continued to lead the coalition, it would meet with electoral disaster.

But Howard did not care; he hung on and suffered the ultimate ignominy. A sitting prime minister, he lost his seat to a political novice, former ABC newsperson Maxine McKew. If he had not been defeated, he would no doubt have hung on as an MP – the fact is he has no other skill other than being a politician. He has no administrative skills, no inter-personal skills, he can only manipulate public sentiment based on the lowest common denominator. And he has the imagination of a dry cucumber.

If any person other than Howard had been put forward as the nomination for ICC vice-president, there would have been no issue. But consider:

  • Howard did not support sporting sanctions against apartheid South Africa but was willing to back sanctions against Zimbabwe, leading to the obvious conclusion that it did not bother him when discrimination against blacks was being practised;
  • he used the military to board a ship full of asylum-seekers – Afghans and Iraqis – which was moving into Australian waters
  • he made no secret of the fact that reconciliation with Aborigines was not a priority of his, despite the fact that Australia has given its first people the raw end of the stick;
  • he has been known as someone who discriminates against people of colour
  • he never did a thing when Pauline Hanson was spreading the message of xenophobia across the country;
  • he was a staunch supporter of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, a gross injustice against a Muslim country;
  • he has been the greatest fan of shock-jock Alan Jones who, on more than one occasion, has been guilty of backing racist thugs. most notably those who were responsible for the riots in Cronulla.

These are just a few of the things which make it clear that Howard has a distinct problem dealing with people of colour. He would have been a disaster dealing with an organisation where the majority of the members are non-white – and the ICC is just that.

If Mark Taylor had been nominated would he have been rejected? Allan Border? Steve Waugh? Bill Lawry? Ian Chappell? Dennis Lillee? Jack Clarke, the current president of Cricket Australia? Damien Fleming? Paul Reiffel? Was Malcolm Speed or Malcolme Gray rejected? Howard is the problem, not any competent Australian.

Howard can continue to make brave noises about not withdrawing his nomination. In truth, he has nothing to do with it; only the boards of Australia and New Zealand can advance or withdraw it. By wheedling his way into contention, he has put the two boards in an awkward position.

Given that India is among the countries that has given Howard the thumbs-down, there is little chance that he will succeed in becoming the ICC vice-president. Had India not objected, Howard would have been accepted. But given all the reasons above, it is no wonder that Asian and African nations feel uneasy about accepting him as the chief of world cricket.

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Howard’s rejection by the ICC is reason to rejoice

WORLD cricket has finally shown some commonsense in rejecting the bid by former Australian prime minister John Howard to become the vice-president of its governing body.

The post of vice-president serves as a two-year incumbency for the next president and the nominations for this position come from different cricket-playing regions in turn. This time it was the turn of the Australasian region and Howard was nominated by Australia while New Zealand put forward an eminent administrator, Sir John Anderson. Politicking ensured that Howard, the worse of the two candidates – by more than a mile – was put forward.

This happened in March. It was assumed that the vice-presidency was a shoo-in but it was not to be. Six countries put their names to a letter on June 29, objecting to his nomination and saying that he was not a suitable candidate. They have asked for the name of another candidate to be put forward.

Howard has had little to do with cricket. He is the type of man who will confess a love for anything if it gains him political mileage and cricket is one game that is very popular in Australia; indeed, many people describe the Australian cricket captain as the second most powerful man in the country.

The Australian media is trying to make out that Howard is an extremely principled man and that the cricket boards which have objected to him are trying to prevent the entry into world cricket of a man who will try to put the house in order. Rubbish.

Howard showed during his 11 years as prime minister that he was willing to sleep with the devil if it would keep him in power. He had no principle – apart from that of doing anything to stay in control of his party. He did nothing to fight against the xenophobic policies of a woman politician named Pauline Hanson, put Aboriginal reconciliation back by a few centuries, was as anti-asylum-seeker as they come, sent the military to board a ship carrying refugees to Australia and did everything possible to discriminate against non-whites.

When it comes to things cricketing, there are a couple of things about Howard’s past which are unlikely to have endeared him to the six boards – Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, and the West Indies – which objected to his nomination. One is his crude comment about Sri Lankan leg-spinner Muthiah Muralitharan, calling him a chucker. Howard’s words were, “they proved it in Perth with that thing.” If anything, the reverse was true.

The second thing is Howard’s refusal to let Australia tour Zimbabwe in 2007. At this point, white farmers were being dispossessed of their land by blacks, with official support from the government of Robert Mugabe. While this decision is certainly justified, it must be borne in mind that Howard was deeply enamoured of South Africa during its apartheid era and only constant advice that it would harm his political prospects kept him from making a visit there in the 1980s. He opposed sanctions against South Africa but was more than willing to institute sanctions against Zimbabwe once Mugabe came to power.

It is, thus. difficult to avoid the conclusion that he was disturbed only by one kind of discrimination. When blacks were the target, it did not seem to bother him.

Cricket has always been a political game. It was taken up by countries colonised by Britain and for a long time Australia and England had veto power over decisions taken by the world body. Power has slipped from these two countries as the ability to generate finances to support the game has grown in India. Today, four-fifths of the money in the game comes from India which distributes it to all the cricket-playing countries.

As the old English proverb goes, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” Once India decided to reject Howard, it was only natural that Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would go along. That would have been sufficient to sink his candidacy.

There are other factors why India has decided to reject Howard. It is doubtful that Australia commands a great deal of respect in India, following the attacks on students which have taken place over the last three years. Additionally, all the Australian kow-towing to China and its refusal to treat India on the same level would hardly have gone down well in New Delhi.

Despite all the righteous talk that politics has no place in sport, the reverse is true. A politician who wants to keep his options open as a sports administrator later on in life would do well to be more circumspect than Howard has been.

It’s worthwhile remembering here that Australia and England ran world cricket for a long time with a condescending and patronising attitude towards the other non-white nations. South Africa was part of the clique and the fact that it would not play against non-white nations caused no disquiet either in London or Canberra.

More than once, rule changes were introduced to curb the rise of the West Indies in order that England, Australia and South Africa could continue to be the dominant powers. The first time in the 1950s, when Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine were bamboozling the opposition, the front-foot lbw law was changed. Not many seasons after that, at Edgbaston in 1957, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May used their pads to negate everything which the two spinners could throw at them in a partnership of 411. The spin twins never recovered from this.

The next time the West Indies threatened to dominate was in the 1960s and Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith were their spearheads. A campaign began to label Griffith a chucker (Richie Benaud was in the forefront); it succeeded to some extent but did not daunt the fierce Barbadian. Then the front foot no-ball rule was introduced. The pair were reined in.

The last time the cricketing authorities attempted to rein in the West Indies was in the 1980s. Clive Lloyd’s fearsome four-man pace battery had started its triumphant run and the question of bouncers was raised. Mind you, world cricket’s governing body had never been exercised about bouncers when England’s John Snow and David Brown were running amuck, nor when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were causing havoc in the ranks of opposing teams. The number of bouncers per over was clipped back to one but that did not get in the way of the West Indies finally squashing all and sundry under their heels.

Discrimination has always been part of cricket since its inception as an international sport. Australia, thus, has no reason to whinge now and complain that it is not getting a fair deal. The wheel has turned and both Howard and Australia should just shut up and cop it sweet.

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Like wine, Tendulkar seems to get better with age

ON February 24, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar set a record that a few have looked like achieving but nobody has – a double-hundred in a one-day game. He set the record against South Africa, the team that is currently ranked third in the ICC one-day rankings, and this gives an indication of the achievement. (Australia stands first in the ODI rankings, followed by India; in the Test rankings the same three teams hold the top positions, with India being first, followed by South Africa and Australia).

One must go back fo 1983 to trace the progress of high scores in one-day cricket – during the world cup in England that year, India’s captain Kapil Dev made a swashbuckling 175 not out against Zimbabwe. At that time, the latter was still a fairly decent outfit, and nothing like the rabble it has become after the political troubles that have engulfed the nation. A year later, Viv Richards knocked the stuffing out of England with a knock of 189 not out, an outstanding effort which was made out of 272 and in an innings where only two others reached double-figures.

Pakistan’s Saeed Anwar eclipsed Richards in 1997 when he made 194 against India in Madras (now Chennai), a score which ZImbabwe’s Charles Coventry equalled last year. Coventry’s innings was somewhat devalued because he made the runs against Bangladesh, a team that should not be playing top-level cricket.

In some ways, Tendulkar’s unbeaten 200 – he reached the mark in the final over of the game – was not as taxing a knock as the 175 he made against Australia last year. The pitch at Gwalior was flat, India was batting first, and the ground was small. Hitting over the top and reaching the boundary was far easier on this ground than in Hyderabad where Tendulkar made his 175.

But that should not detract from the achievement. At 36, any cricketer would normally be devoting his attention to the longer form of the game; that Tendulkar still plays the one-day game and performs so well is testimony to his ability. And an important thing to note is that unlike many others, he has never adopted ugly improvisation to keep making high scores; practically all his shots are genuine cricket shots that the connoisseur can appreciate.

Indian batted first in this game, the second in a three-game series against South Africa, with the advantage of having already won the first. The innings began at at a fair pace but Virender Sehwag, who normally relishes batting on a flat track, fell early. Thereafter, Tendulkar shared three partnerships, with Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan and skipper M.S. Dhoni. He dominated the first two but Dhoni was in such a savage mood that for a while it looked like Tendulkar would be denied his 200.

Tendulkar scored at a cracking pace – 100 in 90 balls out of 176 (his 46th one-day hundred), 151 out of 264 (18 balls to go from 100 to 151) and 200 from 147 (29 balls to go from 151 to 200). He was lucky to be adjudged to have made his ground when sneaking a run at 159. In total, he hit 25 boundaries and three sixes as India, 213 for one in the 32nd over, reached what was ultimately a match-winning 401 by the end of the innings.

South Africa did not play Morne Morkel in this game and Makhaya Ntini is no longer in the team. Dale Steyn, Wayne Parnel, Charl Langeveldt, and Roelof van der Merwe were the main bowlers for the Proteas, a decent attack by any standards. Jacques Kallis and Jean Paul Duminy provided back-up.

When great batsmen strike a certain vein of form, there is nothing any bowler can do; Steyn, who has been a vital cog in South Africa’s move up the ladder in international cricket in recent years, could only watch in resignation as Tendulkar played some incredible shots against his pace. One particular shot stays in the mind – he moved outside the off-stump and hit Steyn to the mid-wicket boundary. That degree of control against a man of Steyn’s pace is reminiscent of the great Richards at his best.

Records are just one indicator of a cricketer’s greatness. The way a player makes runs, the opposition, the circumstances, all count. No matter what factor one measures him by, Tendulkar stands tall.

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Outsiders and insiders

THE recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and other cities in Australia has resulted in the word “racism” figuring in the media quite often. At times, the use of the word is unjustified and some people do tend to go over the top.

But at other times, it is more than justified and if anyone were to say that there is no racial aspect to the savagery, then one could rightly be accused of being disingenuous.

At times, people have sought to bring in some kind of moral equivalence by pointing out that India has a lot of racism within its borders too. That is perfectly correct – there is an institutionalised caste system, Hindus and Muslims fight pitched battles ever so often, and minorities are not exactly accorded their rights.

That, however, does not justify the violence in Australia, a country which has had a long history of exclusion of people based on the colour of their skin.

Apart from the religious factors in India, people do tend to discriminate based on the colour of one’s skin. And it is not merely white people who are resented because of the colonisation of the country by Britain, black people can face problems too. The following tale is drawn from my own experience.

The Madras Christian College, where I studied in the 70s, could well be considered an elite institution. There were three halls for male students and I resided at the Bishop Heber Hall, named after a bishop from Tiruchirapalli. Each hall had its own traditions and practices and at Heber, the seniormost resident was appointed as the “bishop” of the hall each year.

The individual who carried this title had to “baptise” the freshers who joined the hall that year, – dirty pond water was used – after they had gone through three days of initiation. Yes, it was some kind of organised ragging, ostensibly so that the newcomers could learn the hall song and the customs of the college. Plus Heber had something called the Heber yell. And the bishop had to generally lend his experience to hall affairs, whenever needed.

In the mid-70s, there were a couple of Iranians who gained admission to Heber; they refused to take part in the initiation rites and were thereafter excluded from all hall activities. They could not attend the general body sessions, were generally cold-shouldered and had few friends among the residents. They later left the hall.

In 1977, I was the bishop and three Nigerians joined the hall. The initiation days were generally intimated to the newcomers by means of a notice put up near the mess. The three were all pretty well-built chaps, who had done military service in their country, and I suspect that many of my fellow hallmates were afraid to approach them and “rag” them.

The three Nigerians – Princewell, Moses and Lucky – made it clear that they would not be attending the initiation. The first set of juniors was initiated and after this a second set were scheduled for initiation. At this stage, I took it upon myself to visit these three chaps and have a chat with them. I explained to them that they had come to a different country with different customs; though they might find things strange, they needed to join in and become part of the hall community.

I still remember the objection that Princewell raised when I suggested that he and the others join the second batch when they came for initiation: “But, this small boy (referring to one of the hall residents – Princewell was six-feet tall and had a body to match) he ask me to salute him – how can I do it? I serve in the army. I kill people.”

We talked for an hour or two and finally I told them that it was entirely up to them as the process of initiation had no official blessing; it was a tradition of the hall (and indeed the college) and they were free to come and join in. Else they could stay out but in that event, they would not be regarded well by the others who dwelt in the hall.

I was pleasantly surprised when they turned up on time with the second batch of juniors. I grilled them and made sure that they learnt the meaning of the college and hall mottos, the history of the hall, the song and the yell.

But most of the other seniors who turned up to “rag” the juniors were scared to approach the three Nigerians. There was a growing sense of resentment among the senior members of the hall that these three Nigerians were not getting as much ragging as the others. But then these very seniors were funked, they got cold feet when they tried to approach the Nigerians.

On one occasion, Princewell told a senior that he could not understand what he was saying. The senior in question felt it was an insult, as, in his opinion, he was speaking the Queen’s English. As luck would have it, he was one of the Brahmin gang in the hall.

After the three days of ragging were done, the three Nigerians went through the initiation and were formally made members of the hall. But a large section of the residents were angry with me because they felt that the Nigerians had gotten away scot-free. It was their own fear and sense of prejudice that had prevented them going up to these three chaps and ragging them. But now they needed an outlet for their frustrations.

A general session of the hall was requested and the chairman of the hall called for one. (The hall had its own “cabinet” with various secretaries to run the various activities.) A few of the chaps started accusing me of having initiated the Nigerians without their having learnt what they were supposed to learn. This was patently untrue.

I think I annoyed those who were in this camp by pointing out that if the Nigerians had not been ragged “properly”, then it was because people like those who were making accusations against me had not had the guts to come up and rag them. I also pointed out that it was the duty of senior residents like me to ensure that everyone who came to live in the hall became a productive member of the community.

Whenever one stands up for a principle, one makes enemies. It was my fifth year in the hall and I had made some enemies, most of them being Brahmins, upper-caste Hindus. I was considered part of the Western-influenced elite who were, for the most part, the decision-makers in the hall and the ones who had more influence.

Here was a glorious chance for the Brahmins to get their payback. They started insisting that I had violated the traditions of the hall and that I should resign. It was futile for the chairman, who incidentally was a good mate of mine and someone who had won election to the post in part due to my help, to point out that the bishop was not an elected post, it was just an appointment. It did no good, the Brahmins wanted blood.

Finally, I called the chairman aside and told him that it was of no use; this gang wanted a victim and I had no problem giving up the role of bishop. I had stood up for something I believed in and I was willing to pay the price. I then stood up and told the hall of my decision, adding that I was proud of what I had done.

Later that night, the three Nigerians came to my room. They sat down and I still remember what they said to me: “Sammy, if they do anything to you, we kill them.” I assured them that there was no need for such an extreme attitude and that nothing would happen. I asked them to justify what I had done by becoming productive members of the hall.

Lucky became the outdoor games secretary the next year; he was a great hit. Princewell developed into a much-liked character and got along with most people after the row had cooled down. Moses remained somewhat reclusive and aloof but since two out of three had become good members of the Heber community, I considered what I had done a success.

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Indian deaths in Melbourne continue unabated

A TWENTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD Indian student was stabbed to death in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray a few days back. He is just the latest statistic in a grim tale that has gone for the last 18 months or thereabouts, with one Indian victim after another being attacked.

The police in Melbourne still refuse to accept that there could be a racial angle to the string of attacks and are yet to catch anyone responsible. Australian politicians are keen to try and use spin to convince people that the senseless violence is due to anything but an underbelly of racism in Melbourne.

There are some plain truths which people just refuse to understand. More and more countries are becoming heterogenous in terms of populations; as more and more people join a population, it is obvious that everyone will not like everything which the others do. Hence, a sense of restraint develops, a sense of being willing to let the other do his thing, as long as he lets you do yours.

If it were not for this pattern of behaviour, there would be pitched battles on the streets of every major city every single day. We would all be out there fighting like dogs over scraps of meat.

Much as each of us claims to be his own man or woman, the things which we learn to abhor, the things which we come to acknowledge as being harmful to social cohesion are defined solely by our leaders, those in authority and those who can influence public policy – politicians, religious leaders, social leaders, academics, the media, police, the army and so on.

A simple example: two decades ago, it was dangerous for gays or lesbians to even hold hands in public. Gay-bashing was not frowned upon and homosexuals were treated as though they were social pariahs. That kind of sentiment has largely gone away – due to public utterances by those in authority and a constant driving home of the message that they should be accepted as people with an alternate lifestyle.

In the case of the violence against Indians, we need educated people to stand up and condemn the racism that is fuelling these incidents. Instead, the politicians and police are in denial. They just refuse to say it out loud. Nobody has been arrested for any incident. The police must be about the most incompetent in the world, considering that they always say they are investigating the hundreds of cases that have piled up over the last year and a half.

And the irony is that right here in Victoria we have a sterling example of how some plain speaking can quell racist rhetoric and drive it underground. In the late 1990s, a woman by the name of Pauline Hanson started spouting hateful racist drivel against Asians. Her ravings were not criticised by the Liberal prime minister of the time, John Winston Howard. Instead, he chose to treat her utterances as some kind of view held by a section of society.

The Victorian premier of the time, Jeff Kennett, a Liberal too, took the right stand. He condemned Hanson’s statements in no uncertain terms, calling her a danger to society and a loony case who needed to be driven underground. He said her attitudes had no place in a modern society like that in Victoria and that they would damage business and the economy.

At every opportunity, he spoke out and did not mince his words. In large part due to his efforts, Hanson disappeared from public life after a few years. He had the balls and the conviction to call it as he saw it and he was right.

If he was still in politics and leading the Liberals, I would even go so far as to vote for the party in the state elections which are to be held later this year. Labor, which is in power, is the party of spin and media management. The situation will get worse if they come back to power but one has to see what the Libs offer before deciding to back them.

Meanwhile, more Indians will continue to suffer in Melbourne.