Srirangan

It is sometimes very painful to watch the rest of the world run circles around the gullible Indians as they squirm and squeak and try to maintain a stiff upper lip as indignity upon indignity is being heaped upon them at every turn. Such as the case during the second test match in Australia. As Captain Steve Bucknor and his able British deputy led Australia to a much deserved 16th successive test victory. The Indians who once upon a time led the attempts to isolate the Apartheid regime of South Africa now stand accused of “racism ” by a bunch of white men with a reputation of being the worst foul mouths in the sporting world.

In the midst of all this one wonders whether the Indian establishment will ever tire of turning the other cheek and learn to take the fight right into the opponent’s camp?

Perhaps one good place to learn from is from the “champion” side themselves. The way they close ranks is amazing. Not even one Aussie has broken ranks in even one single instance whether they knew it was right or wrong, whether it is the bhajji issue or Clarke’s catch of Ganguly where he clearly grounded it. Every Aussie whether player, TV commentator, ex-player, journalist or spectator is speaking from the same playbook. While in the case of Indians every one wants to play his or her own tune. This tendency to kneejerk moralism among Indians at large is another weakness that many a times works against their own interests.

In this case the Indians brought it upon themselves. The entire cricketing industry today runs because of the Indian market. The BCCI instead of using this market muscle power to bludgeon their opponents into submission has chosen instead to meekly appeal to the very instruments of power used by the White countries(read Australia and UK) to maintain their own position at the helm. And no prizes for guessing what the end result will be in either cases on the table now. Bhajji will be reprimanded perhaps even docked some match fees or handed suspension for a couple of matches while the umpires will be coolly let off to return another day to torment team India while the sheepish Indians will continue to maintain a long face and walk away with their tail between their legs.

By unfortunately neglecting the political aspect of the game the BCCI has unwittingly made sure that Indian cricket in the long run will go the way of Hockey where the White countries simply changed the rules to suit themselves and undid Indian dominance which they had repeatedly failed to do on the field of play.

In a way this is symptomatic of the way India approaches its foreign relations, trying to belong to institutions and abide by the rules of a world order shaped by other powers to suit their own agendas and hoping that its “good behaviour” will be recognised and rewarded rather than like China which threatens to undermine it unless it is satisfactorily accommodated in the global power structure. And no prizes for guessing who is getting the better bargain.

And on a lighter note the laughably pathetic Brits who are on the verge of irrelevance on the global stage on every indicator of sporting power including the no of Olympic medals won, or even the scale of their losses in cricket and football to every team, champion or middling, that they play against are trying to puff up their chests and pat themselves on the back at Australia’s “victory” against India.

And the fact that 10 of the current sequence of 16 wins have come against England and South Africa, past and present holders of the second-ranked position in the world ratings, tells you everything about the strength of their current “challengers”[link].

The reason why the Brits are gloating- they lost the recent Ashes 5-0. truly English cricket is now well and truly dead.This added to their glorious defeat to Croatia in the Euro cup qualifiers has rounded off a very successful 2007 for them.

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I rant, therefore I am.