Of our own bias

Much has been said about Mr Denness's 'sentences' on our beloved Indian cricketers. I, for one, definitely do not concur with Mr. Denness's observations on the "transgression of cricket ethics". Mr Denness is no doubt biased but I doubt whether it can be termed as racism.

Indians have been at the end of the stick of Mr Cammie Smith as well, who is a black. What do you call it then? Brown vs Black racism? Let's leave it to each and every person's opinion as to whether this bias has racist undertones or not. First of all, as the people who are "outraged" at this insult on our "national pride", are we non-biased on the way we have looked at this episode?

Though there is outrage from all parts of the field, the pitch and intensity has been different. Most of the people are angry that a person like Sachin Tendulkar ("Batting maestro", "Willow genius" "name-any-superlative") has been accused of ball tampering. Now, as Geoffrey Boycott said, it doesn't matter who did it, as long as he did it. When Manoj Prabhakar just made an insinuation that Kapil offered him money to underperfom in a match, none of the media or the commentators like Ravi Shastri took sides with him; and rightly so. Unless he is proved innocent no mattter whether he has won the World Cup for us or not, he cannot be beyond suspicion. On the other hand, he cannot be the subject of ridicule as well, but that was not the case with poor Kapil. So why this bias in favour of Sachin alone?

For all said and done, Sachin did a mistake by cleaning the ball without informing the umpire (Gavaskar admitted this as well). So, one can only question the severity of the punishment and not the act itself, whether it tantamounted to ball tampering or not.

If this sentence is severe, then why no outrage at the incident when Ganguly was suspended for just showing his bat? That punishment was more severe than this, atleast in my opinion. Why was there no suggestion to call back the match referee in that series? Infact, Ganguly has been getting the stick of match referees for no reason but still no "unbiased" person (leave alone a commentator) defends him.

My heart really goes towards Virendra Sehwag. A young man, two Tests old, doesn't really deserve this punishment for the "excess" that he has committed on the field. But then, when I saw the newspapers the day after the announcement of the "sentence", I, for a moment, thought that Sachin was the only person who was punished. The headlines were about our maestro and only his photograph was published, as if he was the only person who was sinned against. In my opinion, Ganguly was the one who got the undeserved punishment, because I don't see how he could have avoided the "excesses" committed on the field.

Our national pride is not just Sachin but also the entire team that represents our country in the most popular sport of the nation.

Our obsession with Sachin itself shows our bias towards one person and how we neglect the contribution of other people who are equally important. We do not care whether India wins or not as long as Sachin scores a century. It's shameful that at the expense of our country's loss, we demand Sachin's bat to speak and Sachin's golden arm to tell.

Much was talked about Ganguly refusing Sachin a spell in that one-day international, where Sachin could have got 100 wickets and 10,000 runs. We tend to harp more on who is better in our team (Dravid or Sachin or Ganguly, Srinath or Harbhajan or Kumble) than about how India should play to win.

I am really outraged by Mr. Denness's decision not because our team members were punished but because in the same match, the South Africans (or should I call them whites?) were let scot free. Had Pollock and Hayward been suspended as well, I would have said: "Well done, Mr. Denness". But then, that is not the case. So, let Mr. Denness's decision be the proverbial straw on the camel's back. Let's take these match referees, who openly discriminate against some players (mostly from the subcontinent) and take them to task. Just like it needed a WTC attack to come to terms with global terrorism, I only hope that this episode sparks off a good initiative towards a cricket apartheid.

Let us be angry, not because Sachin is punished, but because another Mr.X was left scot free for the same offence.

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Mail R Raghuraman