Envious and vicious

Cynical Australian media quick to make India a reason for all that is wrong in world cricket

Envious and vicious

Cynical Australian mediau00a0quicku00a0tou00a0make India a reasonu00a0for all that is wrong in world cricket

With defeat at the hands of traditional rivals England (the media of that country has its fair share of cry babies!) in the current Ashes series staring the Aussies in the face, the champion team's media has reverted to its favourite gambit of blaming umpiring when down.

The outcry against South African umpire Rudi Koertzen has been gaining momentum ever since Australia lost the Lord's Test by a resounding 115 runs.

Now with Ponting's team on the mat, the outrage against Koertzen, a gentleman if ever there was one, has reached a crescendo.

Witness the following from yesterday's issues of Australian newspapers: "ICC Ignores Fundamentals in Backroom Deals: POOR UMPIRING SOURING SERIES", "QUESTIONABLE DECISIONS CONTINUE" and "WARNE SENDS A MESSAGE TO RUDI".

The last-named headline was above a piece which started with: "A dubious umpiring performance by umpire Koertzen was tinged with more controversy when he denied an lbw shout on Ian Bell that looked plum to the naked eye".

It went on to say: "Peter Siddle couldn't believe he was turned down in just the fourth over of the day when he swung the ball into Bell's pads, and while Hawk-Eye suggested the ball was going over the stumps, the consensus among commentators and in the press box was it was out".

"Consensus among commentators and in the "press box"! Which commentators and who in the press box? Australians, naturally. Ridiculous!

The report goes on to list a litany of woes against Koertzen through the series, in which the Poms have clinically pricked the bubble of Australian supremacy. It quotes Shane Warne, now a TV commentator and never a paragon of virtue in his playing days, as saying: "It's unfortunate he's doing this because he's a lovely guy and he conducts himself well but he's having a shocker."

Whereas most Australian journalists travelling with the team in Old Blighty have been yelling blue murder for some time now where the experienced Koertzen, standing in his 101st Test, is concerned, the nationally-circulated The Australian has been the most vituperative.

In an arsenic-laced piece, the paper's correspondent, my friend Malcolm Conn, writes: "India, cricket's money-magnet, only cares about umpiring when it thinks it has been duded.

"It's always someone else's fault, like in Sydney 18 months ago, and the umpires are an easy target. Just ask Steve Bucknor about the support, or lack of it, that umpires receive when India spits the dummy.

"Bucknor, who like Koertzen stayed in the game about a decade too long, failed to give Andrew Symonds out caught behind in Sydney during the New Year's Test in 2007.

"India lost, whinged, moaned and complained. Bucknor got sacked and the ICC and Cricket Australia let the caravan roll on. Who cares about principles when there's millions at stake?"

In a scathing comment, which, one must admit has more than a grain of truth in it, Connu00a0 writes: "It comes as no surprise, then, that India, which has more resources than the rest of the world combined, is the only major Test nation without an umpire on the dozen-strong international panel".

Lauding Australian umpire Simon Taufel, winner of the ICC's umpire of the year award for the past five years, Conn continues: "This is an outstanding achievement. It would be nice if he had some competition. And it would be nice if Australia could play a Test where the best umpire in the world was officiating".

So far so good. But Conn disappoints me when he adds: "But that will never happen. If India can demand and achieve the sacking of a West Indian umpire in Australia, imagine what sort of crucifixion it could achieve with an Australian umpire in Australia...

"Perhaps just a fraction of the billions India makes from television rights and the player-destroying Indian Premier League could be spent on developing a few decent umpires of its own."

True, but envious and vicious! The "billions India makes from television" seems to hurt. It is nobody's business but India's, so long as it carries the equally culpable money-minded international cricketing ICC community with it, which it has been doing.

As for "player-destroying Indian Premier League", aren't Australia and England, New Zealand South Africa for that matteru00a0trying their darndest to snatch a piece of India's cricketing pie, with their own proposed money-grabbing me-too T20 competitions?

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