MUMBAI - Cultural differences, the high
economic stakes of modern sport, the
sub-continental obsession for cricket and tensions
between two fiercely competitive teams have
combined to ignite one of the worst rows ever seen
in recent times in Asia-Pacific sports.
India has erupted in shock and fury
following national cricketing star Harbhajan Singh
being banned by the International Cricket Council
(ICC) for three matches on unproved charges of
racism and the Indian team has suspended its tour
of Australia pending
an
appeal against the decision.
Australia,
the world's number one cricket team, is presently
hosting India, reckoned to be a leading challenger
to Australia's cricketing dominance, in a
two-month series that was expected to be intensely
contested but which is now seemingly spiraling out
of control in a sport whose origins date to 16th
century England.
The 27-year-old
turban-wearing Sikh Harbhajan Singh, popularly
called "The Turbanator" for his bowling skills in
getting opposition batsmen out, was accused of
making a racist comment at Andrew Symonds -
Australia's only black player - on the third day
of the five-day match in Sydney, Australia, that
ended on January 6. The game was marred by poor
umpiring decisions and allegedly unsporting and
provocative behavior by Australian players who
were pushing for - and achieved - a world-record
equaling 16 consecutive Test match wins.
Continental cultural differences seem to
be one of the aspects at the core of the
controversy. The racist comment Singh allegedly
used against Symonds was "monkey". One of the most
beloved among the vast pantheon of Indian gods is
the monkey-god Hanuman, representing loyalty,
courage and strength.
In Australia,
calling someone of black origin a "monkey" is
considered unacceptably racist, denoting sub-human
status. Symonds has a West Indian parent.
Coincidentally, January 8 is celebrated as a
Hanuman festival by Hindus worldwide.
India has also filed a complaint against
Australian player Brad Hogg, accusing him of
calling Indian players "bastards". Australian
players allege Singh deliberately meant racist
connotations when he used the "m" word at Symonds,
an allegation which Indian players stoutly deny.
The ICC match referee decided to accept the
Australian version of the allegation.
Mike
Proctor, the South African match referee and a
prominent white player during the country's
apartheid era, deemed an Indian to be guilty of
racism, a turn of irony that would have bemused
Mahatma Gandhi but did not amuse millions of
Indian cricket fans who erupted in anger over TV
channels, newspapers, the Internet and on the
streets.
The uproar raged from fans in
cities burning effigies of match officials and
Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting, news
channels on a near 24-hour live coverage of the
crisis, to members of Parliament and leading
politicians demanding that the national cricket
team be recalled from Australia. Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, asked for his views, left
the ball in the court of India's governing body,
the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Cricket is India's leading sport and is
followed with an obsession that at times leads to
fans committing suicide when the national team
fails. News channels have dedicated cricket
programs and cricket-related issues at times
feature in Parliament.
Following
nationwide outrage, the BCCI has threatened to
recall the team from Australia if the ICC does not
revoke the racism charges, which the BCCI calls
"unfair and an unacceptable slur".
The
ICC, the sport's global governing body which is
often blamed for incompetence and lack of
diplomatic skills, believed its best idea to
defuse the situation was to threaten India with a
US$ 2.3-million fine if it withdrew from the tour.
The storm threatens to outrank the game's
two biggest controversies: a match-fixing scandal
in the 1990s and the "Bodyline" crisis in 1932-33
when a visiting England team adopted intimidating
bowling tactics threatening to injure Australian
batsmen.
At the post-match press
conference of the most recent match, India's
captain Anil Kumble used an unusually strong
famous line used by Australian captain Bill
Woodfull during the Bodyline crisis, "There was
only one team playing in the spirit of the game."
The crisis also reflects the no-nonsense,
give-as-good-as-you-get attitude of the confident
"generation next" of India that young players such
as Harbhajan Singh represent. Earlier Indian teams
meekly accepted Australian on-field abuse,
euphemistically called "sledging", and media
commentators accuse Australian cricketers of
hypocrisy of not being able to take what they dish
out in large doses.
"Fight for Honor"
screamed the title of a prime-time live news
program on India's leading English news channel
CNN-IBN on Monday night, after India. In a rare
display of unity over any issue, people
interviewed expressed outrage over what they
considered an unfair, unjust ban and an insult to
India, a country that has been at the forefront in
the global fight against racism.
Anger
over the racism charge was compounded by India
losing the cricket match after a series of poor
decisions by umpire Steve Bucknor of Jamaica and
Mark Benson of England that fans and even
Australian cricket experts believe resulted in
India's loss.
The global media, too,
pitched in big time with Time magazine headlining
its story "Race row threatens world cricket" and
starting off by asking, "Is that what people mean
when they say sport is more than just a game?"
The BBC ran a report on whether Indian
cricketers had been the victims of injustice and
the respected London daily the Guardian announced
"Australia lose friends, the umpires lose
credibility". Overall, a sense of proportion and
perspective seems to be the biggest victim in an
inflated version of schoolkids squabbling over a
bat and ball game.
"Ugly Australians",
admitted the daily Australian, with India drawing
unexpectedly vehement support from the Australian
media. The likes of Peter Roebuck, a leading
Australian cricket writer and a former player,
demanded in his Sydney Morning Herald column that
Ponting be sacked. Roebuck incredibly called
Ponting's team "cricket professionals turned into
a pack of wild dogs".
A few calm heads at
the end of the playing day might have saved the
situation from volatility, but a stubborn
Australian team decided to press ahead with the
racist charges.
"I am satisfied beyond a
reasonable doubt that Harbhajan Singh directed
that word at Andrew Symonds and also that he meant
it to offend on the basis of Symonds' race or
ethnic origin," Proctor told the media, terming
the decision one of the most difficult he had made
in his life. "I am a South African and I know what
'racism' means," Proctor said, and admitted to a
sleepless night following his giving the verdict.
The offense comes under level 3.3 of the
ICC Code of Conduct and refers to players or team
officials "using language or gestures that
offends, insults, humiliates, intimidates,
threatens, disparages or vilifies another person
on the basis of that person's race, religion,
gender, color, descent or national or ethic
origin".
The BCCI in an official statement
said, "The Indian board realizes the game of
cricket is paramount, but so too is the honor of
the Indian team, and for that matter every Indian"
and vowed that "to vindicate its position, the
board will fight the blatantly false and unfair
slur on an Indian player".
India's anger
is that in the absence of neutral witnesses and
any audio-visual evidence to support the charges,
the ICC hearing accepted the word of the
Australian players over that of the Indian
players, who denied that any such racist word had
been used.
In recent years, cricket has
assumed greater stakes in India following the
country's satellite TV boom that is estimated to
be Asia's second-largest pay television market
after Japan. Star cricketers such as Sachin
Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni earn
multi-million dollar endorsement contracts. India
now even has two exclusive cricket channels - Star
Cricket and Neo Sports.
Last year, ESPN
Star Sports paid the ICC $1.1 billion for eight
years of TV rights and production house Nimbus
bought BCCI rights for international cricket
played in India for $612 million for four years.
India is estimated to drive 70% of global
cricketing revenues. ESPN Star is estimated to
lose $22 million if India calls off its Australian
tour.
Australia's star cricketers earn
bigger endorsements in India than in their own
country. They could suffer. Ogilvy & Mather
executive chairman and former domestic cricketer
Piyush Pandey told the Economic Times, "If I was
an Australian cricketer endorsing an Indian brand,
I would be very, very worried. Right now, there's
a lot of anger and angst."
India,
Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and England
represent the biggest cricket markets worldwide in
a game played widely in 101 ICC member countries.
Non-resident Indians, including millions in North
America, form a significant chunk of the global
cricket market.
Shailendra Singh, joint
managing director of Percept Holdings and a major
player in the endorsement markets, was quoted as
saying. "Australians are known to be aggressive.
But this time the aggression has turned into
arrogance. They have damaged their reputation for
sure. Indian brands will think twice before
signing up any Australian cricketer for
endorsements."
There seem to be no winners
in the mess resulting from what is supposed to be
a gentleman's sport.
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