Proudest Monkey

Why do we still call it a sport? This is the biggest most obnoxious soap-opera-meets-reality-show. All the field is a stage, and all the men in white, mere players. A series that bubbled over with some brilliant cricketing moments, fabulous showmanship and records galore, turned into a schoolboy playground rife with he-said-he-said and astoundingly immature levels of name calling and blame-gaming.

Sachin’s centuries, Kumble’s moments of proud reckoning, Brett Lee’s fast bowling brilliance all faded into some anti-climactic busking side show. Let’s not forget, this series was also the swan song of Australia’s only claim to fame in the Gentlemen Department, Adam Gillie. More like the imploring chirps of the last sparrows that ever nested in Bangalore. Not a single man was allowed to leave that field with his head daring even a half-mast.

I suppose we must at least try to see the good in all the evil. Because no one will remember the poise and elegance with which Kumble dealt with the mêlée. Or Gillie’s valiant, if lone, fight for sportsmanly sobriety, and the fact that we won’t be seeing any of that from anyone on the Australian team, in the matches to come. We sure as hell won’t remember that it was in this series that Yuvraj failed to prove himself as a reliable test player, perhaps because of, you know, his experiments with the many splendoured thing.

But look what we've got! A glossary full of new metaphors. We’ll never get ‘majorly screwed’ anymore. Just ‘Bucknored bigtime’. ‘Monkey’ is unfortunately a word that will now be synonymous with ‘Symonds’. Forever. ‘Get the Symonds off my back!’ (Never mind that Bhajji actually said something far worse, directing his wrath at Symonds’s mother who wasn’t even there to defend herself.) The final word on truth, as it turns out, is Ricky Ponting. So we’ve got ourselves a Fourth Umpire. If Ponting be told, I think it’s a great idea. In fact, I think we should blind-fold Ponting and make him stand in cricket’s High Court of Justice, wherever that is. We’ll get one soon enough, anyway.

Stump mic par haath rakhke kaho. Mein jo kuch kahoonga, Ponting kahoonga.

Australia sure as Bucknor turned the tables on the whole issue of racism and racist abuse in cricket. I'm just wondering if they're damn sure they picked the right team. Hopefully someday, in retrospect, everyone will realise how entirely foolish it was to accuse the pot of calling the kettle an indeterminate brown.

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Oh, and here's a brilliant piece. Thanks for sharing, Appu.