India should be ready to get heckled too

New Delhi: The Indian team’s performance during the ODI series at home may not give the assurance of a remarkable display when they embark on a voyage Down Under this December, but what they are sure of is cricketers, spectators and the media hounding them during the testing tour.

The sledging by Indian cricketers and the ‘monkey taunts’ by spectators on Andrew Symonds in Vadodara, Nagpur and Mumbai are sure to lead the Australians to try and see that the Indians get homesick pretty early during their 86-day tour.

Arrogant Aussies

Australia have been dominating world cricket like never before but the flip side has been an arrogance that is threatening to put the game into disrepute. The Aussies have been the masters at sledging over the years, but when someone like Tony Greig suggests that matters are getting out of hand, one has to sit up and take notice.

The former England captain had said after South Africa’s tour of Australia last year that he had never heard anything like the mouthful the home side were giving the opposition. A popular commentator, Greig never fought shy of exchanging a few words and often positioned himself in the close-in to have a go, but what he heard when they upped the volume of the stump microphone, shocked him.

Racial slurs in Australia

That tour also saw the South Africans being heckled by the crowds and their skipper Graeme Smith warned that England spinner Monty Panesar would have a hard time during the Ashes series, and the Sikh player did face racial slurs from spectators.

That Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan and Australian spectators have no affinity is already well documented and now the fans are readying to hound the Indian team, ensuring that they do so without being evicted from the ground and are even using cyber space to discuss their plans.

When Panesar was taunted with shouts of ‘stupid Indian’ last season, Cricket Australia’s Peter Young had said that there was little that could be done.

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