Tendulkar in a new controversy
Posted on Apr 11, 2007 at 00:45 | Updated Apr 11, 2007 at 10:07
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Tags: cricket, india, tendulkar
New Delhi: When the elephant is down, even an ant kicks it. Or so goes a Chinese proverb.
Sachin Tendulkar, the darling of cricket lovers over the years but one whose fan club has dwindled in the recent past, is the big man everybody likes to have a shy at nowadays. His batting has left a lot to be desired and controversies are dogging him with his comments on coach Greg Chappell irking the BCCI enough to ask for an explanation.
As if his lack of batting form, the admonition by the governing body and the prospect of being dropped from the ODI team was not enough, he now finds himself attacked from a new front, being blamed for showing disrespect to the national flag.
This time, it is not the flag on his helmet or any other part of his apparel but a cake resembling the tri-colour that he reportedly cut just before the World Cup in the Caribbean islands.
A website - www.headlinesindia.com - has stirred up controversy, splashing pictures of the master batsman cutting the cake in Jamaica with colours of the Indian flag and the Ashok Chakra very much in place at the centre.
The function apparently took place on March 10 in the presence of the Indian High Commissioner to Jamaica, K L Agrawal.
The photograph shows Zaheer Khan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ajit Agarkar and Harbhajan Singh standing near Tendulkar as he is seen cutting the cake.
Nationalists will no doubt say the disrespect led to India being knocked out of the World Cup at the preliminary stage and though the cricketers may not have realized the gravity, it was baffling to see a high-ranking Indian official being party to the act, which is in contravention to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.
The Act stipulates, “Whoever in any public place or in any other place within public view burns, mutilates, defaces, defiles, disfigures, destroys, tramples upon or otherwise shows disrespect to or brings into contempt (whether by words, either spoken or written, or by acts) the Indian National Flag or any part thereof, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”
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