What can I say......Avid cricket fan that I am....I was watching day 5 of the second test match at S.C.G just like many other fans. It felt like Indians were playing against 13 players instead of 11. I would add Steve "The Idiot" Bucknor and Mark "The Stupid" Benson in the Australian team. The umpiring decisions were atrocious. Starting from the decisions in favor of Symonds and Ponting.....to the decisions that went against Dravid, the umpiring on the whole has just been silly....
Cricket is a funny game one dismissal can determine whether a team is gonna win or lose. Yesterday, Dravid's dismissal was the turning point. Agreed that mistakes do happen....but the decision which sent back Dravid to the dressing room was......hmmm...how can any one ever give a batsman out caught behind in the fashion Bucknor did. All I can say is that Bucknor and Symonds are having a ball....and a wonderful game together.....
Dravid was looking comfortable at the crease with Ganguly.....had he not been given out...it would have been a comfortable draw....I am not whining here......No one can win if you are playing against umpires as well.....Look at this guy Benson, when Ganguly was caught by Clarke there was ample doubt in my mind as well Ganguly's and several other cricket lovers whether the catch was taken cleanly or not. What does Benson do ? he checks with the fielding captain Ponting to find out if the catch was taken cleanly or not and then makes a decision to send back Ganguly to the pavilion. Umpires are on the field to take decisions on their own....and when in doubt they can refer to the third umpire not to the fielding captain as was this case. Had the decision been referred to the third umpire there was very fat chance that the benefit of doubt would have gone in favor of Ganguly.
Ponting a cricket hero in Australia is as unethical as it gets.....He takes a catch, a good edge in this case but the ball clearly the ball was grounded and he knew it pretty well as it was not just a contact but a thud into the ground.....but still the great Australian hero goes up appealing to the umpire.....Earlier in the match, this same Ricky stood rock solid at the crease even after it was so obvious to him that he had nicked a ball on the leg side,but when the whole Indian team went on appealing,he never made a move. .......replace Ponting with any other player from the sub continent the commentators would have gone berserk. In fact replace any of the players mentioned above with their counterparts from the opposite team....you would have seen hundreds of articles in the Australian media flaying the umpiring standards and how the sportsman spirit in Cricket is going down.........Cricket is no longer a gentleman's game....
I would like to add one thing though....the way Kumble played yesterday was simply outstanding. He was given a good hand by Dhoni and Bhajji......Kumble's batting yesterday was just sheer grit nothing more nothing less....every person has to take a cue from this guy....Kudos to him and the team....for fighting it out till the very end.....
Finally, I would have given the Man of the match to Steveeee instead of Roy....for his outstanding umpiring !!. Indian team management should now start thinking about the team composition. If I was made in charge :-) I will replace Jaffer and Yuvi with Sehwag and Irfan. Irfan will give us an extra bowling option and seeing the way Yuvi is playing......Irfan looks like a better option as far as the batting goes.....Jaffer is not able to cope up with the pace of Australian bowlers, Sehwag could be potent opener along with Dravid.
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