Australian media slams Harbhajan decision
SYDNEY: The Indian cricket board (BCCI) and the International Cricket Council (ICC) have come under attack from sections of the Australian media after India spinner Harbhajan Singh was cleared of racially abusing Andrew Symonds.
Australian newspapers accused the BCCI of using its financial muscle to hold the world game to ransom while criticizing the ICC for bowing to their demands.
The Sydney Morning Herald's headline read, "Cricket's day of shame" while The Australian proclaimed "Cricket caves in to India's demands," The Sun-Herald's main headline was "India gets its way, Harbhajan charge downgraded, ban overturned."
Harbhajan had originally been suspended for three matches after being found guilty of calling Symonds, Australia's only black player, a "monkey" during this month's bad-tempered second Test in Sydney.
The Indian cricket board had threatened to cancel the tour unless the ICC dropped the charges but the crisis was averted on Tuesday when Harbhajan won an appeal against the original ruling.
Harbhajan was cleared when the appeal judge agreed to downgrade the charge to the lesser offense of abusing an opponent. He pleaded guilty and was fined half his match fee but the three-match ban was lifted.
The broadsheet Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Indian cricket board had chartered a plane to take its players home if the verdict went against Harbhajan while Cricket Australia persuaded its own players to drop the charges and agree to a lesser offense.
The paper said Australia's players were privately seething about the turn of events but were left with no option because Cricket Australia feared the prospect of a multimillion dollar lawsuit if the tour was scrapped.
"World cricket authorities have caved in to the game's financial superpower, India, and Cricket Australia has incurred the wrath of its own Test players by pressuring them to drop a racial slur charge against Harbhajan Singh," the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
"The Board of Control for Cricket in India had even chartered a plane to take its players home tomorrow if the Indian player's three-Test suspension - for calling Australia's Andrew Symonds a monkey during the Sydney Test - had not been overturned at yesterday's appeal in the Federal Court in Adelaide."
Former Somerset captain Peter Roebuck, writing in the same newspaper, said the Indian cricket board should be condemned for its abuse of power.
"If this is the way the Indian board intends to conduct its affairs hereafter, then God help cricket," Roebuck wrote.
Agencies
(China Daily 01/31/2008 page22)
