Symonds is no saint

If you go by the recent controversy surrounding the India-Australia cricket players and the subsequent ruling (fining Ishant Sharma 15 per cent of his match fees) by ICC match referee Jeff Crowe one doubts the authenticity of the verdict.

What Crowe should have been asking himself is why does the controversies surround only Symonds (remember the Symonds-Bhajji spat during Sydney Test) and not any of the other Aussie players even though hosts' skipper Ricky Ponting and opener Matthew Hayden are accused of instigating Symonds against Bhajji.

If one watches the TV replays closely, it is quite evident that the lanky Indian fast bowler was only celebrating the fall of Symonds' wicket in the first a few frames after clean bowling the Aussie all-rounder.

But soon after you can see the expression on his face change, probably after Symonds (not on the frame) said a few unkind words to him instigating the Indian lad to point his fingers towards the pavilion to say that he better start his long walk back to the dressing room.

I am sure pointing one's finger towards the pavilion, which is done all the time by the Aussie bowlers, calls for a punishment in the first place and also the ICC match referee should have realised that Symonds, who kept on making faces at the Indians when they batted, is no saint in the second.

Now what baffles me most is:

Why was Symonds making faces in full view of the TV cameras?

Was he making faces at the Indian batsmen or the umpires?

Or: Is the poor chap suffering from some in-curable disease?

Well we may never get the answers for any of these questions because I am sure the umpires and the match referee will vouch that they never saw it because their attention was focused purely on the Indians.

However, one thing is quite obvious and that is the Indian are giving the hosts a very hard time in middle after proving that the world champions are beatable in both forms of cricket and the Aussies, who are famous (or infamous) for playing the mind game by sledging opponents, realise that they have the backing of the two umpires and the match-referees and hence go to any extent to demoralise the Indians.

It was quite evident that Ponting was surely using his best pal and teammate Symonds' shoulders to fire at the Indians in the Bhajji incident while in the second and recent incident he is alleged to have called Bhajji a 'mad boy' time and again along with Hayden, who appears to be an innocent slip fielder, but is said to indulge in the worst types of sledging.

Unfortunately for Symonds, neither is he as cleaver as his skipper nor is he as innocent looking as Hayden, who always seems to have a sorry smile on his lips, and in the bargain gets caught is his act even though he also manages to get away from penalties. Thanks to the match-referees (apart from Ranjan Madugalle), who unfortunately seems to be itching to punish the players from the sub-continent even before looking closely into the incidents.

Unfortunately for India and for Ishant, he is not even half as intimidating as any of the fast bowlers in the world (including our own S Sreesanth), the innocent has been punished.

So the chief referee's first reaction should have been to examine both Ishant, the mildest fast bowler you can imagine, and Symonds, the brashest cricketer you can come across, and then take action accordingly.

But that was not to be as the intentions of both the match referees -- Jeff Crowe and Mike Procter -- was to punish the innocents.