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Something to be ashamed of

BCCI should focus on anger
management, writes Makarand Waingankar

Four top international players being involved in two separate controversies in less than a week in the IPL is a good example to realise how the Spirit of the Game is understood by modern cricketers. That, out of these four cricketers, three are Indians is something we all should be ashamed of.

There have been numerous cases of international players not knowing the laws of the game. In the Jamaica Test against Ajit Wadekar’s Indian team in 1971, the West Indies skipper Sir Garfield Sobers enforced the follow-on without realising that the rain-curtailed Test match was reduced to four days and the follow-on was applicable for 150 runs and not 200 runs. Sobers may not have been well versed with the laws of the game but when umpire Satyaji Rao declared Budhi Kunderan caught by Sobers in the leg trap off Lance Gibbs in the Mumbai Test of 1967, it was Sobers who called Kunderan back, unlike Sourav Ganguly who forced the umpire Pratap Kumar to refer the catch taken by Smith to the third umpire recently.

The Spirit of the Game was violated by Ganguly here, and this has happened on many occasions when Ganguly was pulled up for breach of the ICC Code of Conduct. Though Shane Warne, like Sreesanth, is no saint, he certainly hit the nail on the head when he questioned the public show of captains signing the Spirit of the Game pledge on the day of the inauguration of the IPL only for it to be flouted so blatantly.

First Ganguly delayed his arrival for batting, making everyone wait. And then, by asking the umpire to review the decision, he clearly showed disrespect to the Spirit of the Game. And when this is exhibited in a tournament that is being keenly followed by the masses, it has an adverse effect on the teenagers who idolise international players.

The Harbhajan Singh-Sreesanth show is a blot on the image of Indian cricket. That the BCCI has acted swiftly in this case needs to be complimented.

Since the footage of the incident that was made available to the Match Referee showed Harbhajan Singh slapping Sreesanth, the psychiatrists feel it’s time the BCCI deals with anger-management since most of the cricketers — due to lack of education — tend to follow the wrong path.

Curbing the menace

Till the 70s, even uneducated cricketers were conscious of the fact that the game has a history and tradition. This made the umpire’s task easier. Today the more officials you assign to the task of curbing the menace of on-field misbehaviour, the more controversies erupt.

Had the selection committee of the year 2000 heeded the advice of the late Hanumant Singh who, as the Director of the NCA, had sacked Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik and Nikhil Haldipur for constant misbehaviour, Harbhajan Singh would have been a different cricketer.

When despite the sacking order from the NCA, the national selection committee picked Harbhajan Singh for the Test series, Hanumant Singh had predicted that this cricketer would one day embarrass the nation.

Unlike Murali Kartik who changed his behaviour to a considerable extent, Harbhajan Singh has viewed the backing of the BCCI as a victory in all the episodes that he indulged in. Hopefully, with the anger management, rational emotive behavioural therapy and frustration tolerance index that the BCCI is now facilitating for players, this type of problem will be sorted out rather than swept under the carpet.

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