Harbhajan Singh a racist?

Harbhajan Singh has been banned for three test matches effectively cutting short his Australian tour after he was found guilty of racism for calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey" during the second test match of the ongoing India-Australia test series. In the words of Mike Procter the match referee - "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."

A three match ban for calling someone a monkey?! And how in hell did it constitute racism?! I mean I call my daughter a "naughty little monkey" as an endearment! At first glance the complaint itself sounds silly and the punishment unfair. But, there is some history to this story - when the Australians toured India in Oct 2007,  Symonds was called a monkey by certain sections of the crowd first in Vadodara and later in Mumbai and Symonds took offence to that as being racist. Then too there was a debate as to whether to interpret the crowd's behavior as a racial comment or merely as a playful taunt to Symonds' perceived boorish antics. We would never know what those people were really thinking when they were taunting him, but we definitely know for sure how Symonds felt - insulted, humiliated and a victim of racism. And that by itself is reason enough to stop calling him that. While it is highly arguable that the crowd behavior in Vadodara wasn't racist, it's a separate debate; Once Symonds explicitly took offense to that behavior as being racist, it is reasonable to expect any decent human being to stop insulting him like that. The Mumbai crowd didn't, and hence their behavior inexcusable. And for the same reason, Harbhajan's behavior is also inexcusable.

Does this mean Harbhajan is a racist? No, I don't think so. There was a lot of chirping from the Australians when Harbhajan was batting and it is totally plausible that Symonds said or did something to really offend Harbhajan and Harbhajan responded in kind. I believe Harbhajan called Symonds a monkey not because of his ethnicity or race but because he knew it would tick him off. So, while I agree with Mike Procter punishing Harbhajan, I am not convinced that "he (Harbhajan) meant it to offend on the basis of Symonds' race or ethnic origin".

On the other hand, this incident should have never escalated up to the match referee in the first place. Every team sledges, Australians more so than others; and every individual has his own level of tolerance for what is over the limit and what is within (remember the jelly bean incident with Zaheer Khan?). If the Australians felt that Harbhajan was crossing the line, they should have first tried to work things out by talking to the Indian captain off field instead of running to the umpires. Aren't they the ones who advocate the "what's said in the field remains in the field" argument? Its just shameful that an issue which could have been easily solved over a couple of beers has been escalated to a player being banned.

The tail wags, but....

The Indian batting lineup redeemed itself at the SCG after a dismal performance at the MCG, riding high on VVS Laxman's glorious 109 and Sachin Tendulkar's sublime 154*.  But once again, India's tactics while batting with the tail was baffling to say the least and this time it was Tendulkar who was the culprit. His strategy of trusting the tailenders and sharing equal strike with them worked pretty well with Harbhajan, who scored a very useful 63. And that partnership between them essentially enabled India to get closer to Australia's score and eventually go past it.

Once Harbhajan got out, one expected Tendulkar to take charge,  farm the strike and be more aggressive.  But, Tendulkar was happy to rotate the strike around to both RP Singh and Ishant Sharma, both of whom outscored Tendulkar in their partnerships! Agreed, Ponting made things harder by pulling back the field when Tendulkar was facing the bowling and bringing the field in for the last 2 balls of an over; but, it was frustrating to see Tendulkar neither show any intent to protect the tail nor be aggressive in scoring runs. Its to the tailenders credit that they were able to last longer than expected.

Nevertheless it was a controlled, well-paced, expert innings from Tendulkar, who after a couple of near misses in 2007 has scored his 38th test hundred - an innings that has put India on top...for now.

Boxing Day Test: Dravid to open?

The eagerly awaited Boxing Day Test between India and Australia is almost here and based on the team that they fielded in the practice match against Victoria, it seems almost certain that Yuvraj would play at the expense of Kartik with Dravid opening the batting alongside Jaffer.

While it may seem fair to Yuvraj who has been knocking the doors of the team for quite some time now, and has quite literally barged his way in riding on a masterful 169 against Pakistan, it is quite unfortunate for Kartik who excelled as opener in the series against England a couple of months ago.  Agreed, Kartik didn't make any meaningful contributions in the recent series against Pakistan, but much of that was due to the enormous pressure exerted on him by the voices questioning the validity of Yuvraj warming the bench, and I think he deserves another chance. 

And, Yuvraj's entry in the middle order means Dravid has to open the innings with Jaffer. One might argue that Dravid on numerous occasions has come in to bat at three within the first 10 overs and hence it isn't a far stretch for him to open. It isn't far but it is still a stretch! Being a team man, Dravid has said that he is willing to make the adjustment to be an opener, but again, I repeat, it is still an adjustment and it is not going to be easy. While it might be easy to move up and down the middle order, it is not easy to change roles - opener to middle order or vice versa. If it was easy, then he would have excelled as an opener much earlier in his career; Sachin would have excelled coming in at four in the 2007 World Cup. If it is easy, I would rather have Sachin and Ganguly open the innings, drop Jaffer and get a fifth bowler in! Now, that looks like a winning team on paper, and that's exactly what it is - a dream team in theory, but one that wouldn't work in practice. Also, the Indian middle order has revolved around the solidity that Dravid provides batting at three. Why compromise that in such a crucial and tough tour?

So, my choice of openers for the match are Jaffer and Kartik. As for Yuvraj, he is a fighting for a spot in the middle order and though very unfortunate, there just isn't any room for him in the team at this moment.

My Indian team for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG -

1. Wasim Jaffer
2. Dinesh Karthik
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Sourav Ganguly
6. VVS Laxman
7. MS Dhoni
8. Irfan Pathan
9. Anil Kumble
10. Zaheer Khan
11. RP Singh

Batting with the tail

India has won the first test match against Pakistan and VVS Laxman's partnership with MS Dhoni had much influence on the outcome. But, consider this - when Dhoni got out exposing the tail, Laxman had scored 49 runs off 89 balls. One would expect a specialist batsman in this situation to try and farm the strike as much as possible, facing at least 3 or 4 balls per over. But, by the time the innings wrapped up, Laxman had faced only a further 45 balls scoring 23 runs, while the tail enders had faced 89 balls to score 45 runs - that translates to just 2 balls per over being faced by Laxman! Its even more baffling if you consider when the tailenders got out - Harbhajan Singh takes a single off the last ball of the 75th over and gets out the first ball of over 76; Laxman takes a single off the 1st ball of over 79 and both Zaheer Khan & Munaf Patel get out the same over leaving Laxman stranded on 72!

Contrast that with the previous instance when a specialist Indian batsman batted with the tail through the end of the innings - when Dhoni did it in the first test match between India and England in July 2007. In that innings, after Laxman fell, Dhoni scored 39 runs off 71 balls with the tail scoring 9 off 49 balls - that translates to a much better 3.5 balls per over being faced by Dhoni.

It is probably not fair to judge Laxman based on one match, but it would be interesting to compare his career statistics when batting with the tail against other number 6 batsmen.

Tendulkar vs Ponting

During the current ODI series between India and Pakistan, an "expert" panel on TV was discussing the current form of Tendulkar. Though everyone agreed that he was India's best player on current form, one of them questioned his performance compared to Ponting. He opined that Tendulkar has scored heavily through 50s and 90s, but is not as consistent as Ponting. I was curious about the validity of his remarks and checked out the ODI batting statistics for Tendulkar and Ponting in the last 2 years (from 1/1/2006 - 11/18/2007).

	Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
Tendulkar	49	2053	141*	46.65	3	16
Ponting	47	1981	164	49.52	5	14

courtesy - www.cricinfo.com

As one can see, there is literally nothing that separates the two. This has been the story of Tendulkar the last few seasons. There are few critics out there who speak with a stubborn attitude that he is past his prime and try to justify their views by ignoring the facts. Shouldn't these "experts" be held accountable for their statements?