Australian cricket team is undoubtedly best cricket team of the world. They are professionals. They are equally good in bowling and batting. They play game for win. They don't want to compromise lesser than win. For this, they can go to any extent. In fact at the present time they are in panic. They cannot tolerate their defeat. Perhaps due to such type of mentality, they are now adopting wrong means to win the game.
Hence, for getting consecutive 16th win, Australia had broken the heart of cricket lovers. De facto Australian cricket team and umpires Bucknor and Benson played with spirit of the game. If it was game, we must stop to play such type of game. Thus Captain of Australian team Ricky Ponting wanted to emulate Steve Waugh through this 16th consecutive win and he did same thing.
In this Test match Bucknor and Benson were determined to defeat India by their judgements. We can also not deny the nexus between umpires and Australian cricket team, because all decisions were being taken by umpires after taking consent of Australian cricket team Captain Ricky Ponting and co.
On first day of match, Australian skipper Ponting was out, when Saurav Ganguly bowled to Ricky Ponting. But Benson turned down appeal of Saurav Ganguly and other team members. That blunder changed the course of match. Another Australian player Andrew Symonds was also out in the ball of Ishant Sharma. But due to wrong decision of Bucknor he was declared not out.
On second day too, Symonds escaped from net of out on account of wrong decision of umpire.
On fourth day of match Benson turned down the appeal of Indian skipper Anil Kumble, when Michael Hussey was out. On that day, Hussey escaped again, when he played ball of RP Singh. Having taken the wickets of Hussey and Clarke consecutive, Kumbley was about to take wicket of Symonds, but due to wrong decision of umpire Bucknor, Symonds declared not out and Kumble deprived from his hattrick.
Fifth day of match was known as black day in the history of cricket. On this day Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly both were trapped in the net of umpire Benson. In the first instance, Dravid was given out caught behind when he padded up to it outside off, the bat behind his pad and nowhere near the ball and in second instance, Clarke was unyielding on his stand as he caught the ball low in front of him at second slip, whereas Ganguly was absolutely safe. But umpire declared him out. Ganguly and Indian team members were thoroughly dissatisfied from that decision.
Interestingly, Michael Clarke picked up the last three wickets from only five balls, whereas in reality all were not out. As a result, India could not score desired runs and lagged behind in the current series with 2-0.
Indeed Indian cricket team devastated, but not due to bad performance. Reason of devastation was bad umpiring and rape with sprit of game.
Besides bad umpiring, for getting physiological walkover in the game, Australian team also trapped veteran Indian off spinner Harbhajan Singh in a dispute, whereas Harbhajan Singh was not guilty at all. In spite of that Harbhajan Singh punished for that misdemeanor which he had not done. Now Harbhajan Singh will not play in three matches. Obviously Australian team will take benefit of it, because they are not comfortable in playing against off spinners.
I think Australians and some umpires have forgotten the sprit of game. Other wise they respect the value of game. They should maintain the sprit of the game; because in point of fact Game is means of entertainment .It is also means of bring harmonization among people and nations.
So this is high time for Australian players and umpires to think over present state of affairs and change their way of playing .Through game, we are not winning any war. Instead of it, through this, we can win the heart of people. Winning habit is good thing. But for this, there is no need to adopt wrong means. We should win game through game instead of hypocrisy.
Satish K Singh