Hitting the Fan

With India having gone the way of every other team that faces Australia, the s*** has really started to hit the fan in Sydney.

From this distance one can only agree that the umpiring throughout the match was poor; Bucknor has looked past his best for a year or two now and Mark Benson probably hasn't reached his best yet. And most of the errors went against India, although Indian fans should be wary of getting too paranoid. Even allowing for the part played by the officials, the Indian batsmen should have been able to bat through the last day, especially when they made such a good fist of the first innings at the SCG. Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke may be many things, but world-class bowlers they're not (even though Clarke's Test average - 15.54 for 11 wickets -suggests otherwise).

As for the other controversy of the hour, well, who knows what was said, although I assumed that the umpires must have heard something and reported it to Procter for the case to have been declared open and shut so rapidly. Now I read that it was the word of Ponting and Symonds against that of Harbhajan and Tendulkar.

Either way, there's too much postured verbal sparring between players going on for my liking. No sooner have we gained an injury-induced respite from the lunatic Sreesanth than Harbhajan's piling in. Not that Australia can complain; they virtually invented 'sledging' and there's more than a few players in the current side who know how to mix it with the best of them. And then there's Nel and Prior (oh, sorry, the England selectors have seen him off for the time being).

Time to grow up, calm down and just play the game.

What Can You Do?

It wasn't a great surprise - quite the opposite, in fact - to see the way in which India capitulated at Melbourne. Indian batsmen and pacy Australian tracks have rarely mixed well, and they went into the first Test of the series with even less practice behind them in local conditions than Fletcher and Flintoff's doomed England side did last year.

Today, though, could have been different. But it wasn't. When Australia are the home team it rarely is. When I went to bed with an hour gone RP had whipped out the openers, but I was woken by the news that Australia had been 134-6 before Hogg and Symonds had brought them round.

That's the thing about Australia. At least one player, often two, will always step up to the plate (as Duncan Fletcher might say); as they flourish the opposition, as often as not, will fall away as they see their early good work disintegrate. It's no good just starting well against Australia; you have to keep a high level of performance up all the time (and receive all the help from the umpires you can get). If you don't you're dead meat, especially if the game's being played in Australia.

Still, at least playing Australia stops weaker sides from getting the idea that they belong at the same table.

What can you do?

Well, it's not Australia's fault that they're this good. All anyone else can do is try to get better.