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The game of cricket belongs to the players. It is they who set the standard to which they play and they who decide the spirit in which they play.
Verbal abuse, sledging, mental disintegration - call it what you will - is an ugly, modern phenomenon far removed from the feisty banter associated with many a competitive former player. The players routinely say that sledging is "part and parcel of the game".
Well, it isn't. It is something that has evolved during the increasingly confrontational, cocky and commercial age in which we live. The further the players push this the more dangerous it becomes.
Soon enough, like next week in Perth, they may not have the game that has made them. India's threat to abort their tour of Australia does not come as a surprise.
Harbhajan Singh has been found guilty of labelling Andrew Symonds a "monkey". Probably, the Australians pushed him until he snapped.
Derogatory manner
The word monkey, if applied to Symonds in a derogatory manner, is an insult and, arguably, a racial one at that. For sure, some of the scorn poured upon the Indian off-spinner, and most opponents, by the Australians - though not necessarily to a man - has been insulting.
Consider the facts. Harbhajan tapped Brett Lee on the backside. Symonds didn't like what he saw and stepped in to support his mate. Harbhajan responded. We think we know what Harbhajan said. We can only imagine Symonds's idea of supporting his mate.
Pussy cats
When Ricky Ponting brought his team to England in 2005, they behaved like pussy cats. Ponting really thought he could clean up the act and win at the same time.
England caught him off guard, playing an "in-your-face" game of their own.
To find an innocent party is to uncover a sapphire in the surf.
The game has been waiting for this and now it has happened. It has happened because a young, fearless Indian bit back with something below the belt and because his intelligent and hugely respected captain concluded that "only one team was playing within the spirit of the game".
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