GIVEN the Indian media’s penchant for exciting headlines, they called the fiasco at the Sydney Cricket Ground Bollyline.
The reinvented term rhymed with the game’s most infamous controversy — the Bodyline series, which on the 1932-33 Ashes tour of Australia saw England under Douglas Jardine push gamesmanship to the limits with tactics that were profoundly meant to bodily harm the hosts, especially Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest batsman known to the game.
A Bodyline bowler deliberately aimed the ball at the body of the opposing batsman, in the hope of creating legside deflections that could be caught by one of several fielders in the quadrant of the field behind square leg.
Although several batsmen were hit during the series, as would be expected, no-one was hit while a leg-theory field was set, but still it led to ill feeling between the two national teams, with the controversy eventually spilling into the diplomatic arena.
Over the next two decades, several of the game’s laws were changed to prevent this tactic being repeated. Clearly though, Bodyline is considered to this day to be against the spirit of the rules, a charge that Indian captain Anil Kumble raised amid rising acrimony against Ricky Ponting’s team in Sydney.
India has a film industry — familiar by its moniker — Bollywood, which is the world’s largest. Hence the derivative: Bolly (from Bollywood) and line (from Bodyline) = Bollyline.
Many of us had assumed we had probably seen the worst disaster in the game at The Oval in 2006 when an infuriated Pakistan team led by Inzamamul Haq trooped off the field over unsubstantiated charges of ball-tampering by Australian umpire Darrell Hair, who then forfeited the game, which Pakistan was almost certain to win in England’s favour.
Hair was ousted from the Elite Panel of umpires following an International Cricket Council hearing. Sydney however, outdid The Oval and, if anything, was a bizzare manifestation of what bad sportsmanship can lead to.
Going into the high-profile Gavaskar-Border Trophy with a series win over Pakistan at home, Anil Kumble’s experienced Indian team was expected to give the World Champions a run for their money.
They only flattered to deceive in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne but showed uncanny grit to dominate the Sydney affair until they were done in by atrocious umpiring and the questionable conduct of a host team desperate to better their own record of 16 consecutive Test victories. All independent analysts and even many locals conceded as much.
At a fair esimate, at least ten controversial decisions were handed out by Messrs Steve Bucknor of the West Indies, Test cricket’s most capped umpire, and England’s Mark Benson.
The one against Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid will probably stand out for incredulity: he was given out caught behind with his bat firmly tucked behind his pad as he made a forward defensive push. It wasn’t even a question of there being daylight between bat and ball as the willow was almost hidden behind the pad.
Yet the bowler, Andrew Symonds, who became the focal point of all debate went up in appeal along with the projected most “righteous” player in the world, wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist, his captain Ponting and the others. But this paled in comparison to another catch that Ponting claimed in the slips, which replays showed, was clearly grounded.
The much-hyped future Australian captain Michael Clarke had earlier also claimed a catch, whose legitimicy created doubt in the mind of the umpire Benson. Instead of doing the obvious — making a referral to the third umpire — the English umpire astonishingly asked Ponting to verify the claim!
Without a moment’s hesitation, the Australian captain raised his finger, which led Indian commentators to sarcastically suggest his annointment as the fourth umpire. Benson simply picked the cue from Ponting to give the batsman his marching orders!
The decision to uphold Clarke’s appeal and Ponting’s verification was particularly dubious since, Clarke had stayed at the crease in the first innings when the umpire failed to spot a nick, which according to one commentator, was even heard outside the ground. The Asutralian skipper, as mentioned earlier, had already claimed a grounded catch.
To be fair to the Indians, all this probably would have been too much for any side to take, yet Kumble hung on grimly to try and save a Test, which had umpiring not ruined it for them, they probably would have won.
As it turned out, Ponting in an inspired move gave the ball to Clarke in what was the penultimate over of the day. The visitors lost the last three wickets off four balls to lose by the thinnest of Test margins in terms of balls remaining: seven!
However, much of the drama centered around Australian team’s decision to report off-spinner Harbhajan Singh for alleged racist slur, which could not be proved beyond doubt in a subsequent hearing by Match Referee Mike Procter.
Yet, in a cataclysmic shift that soured relations between the two teams, Singh was banned for three Tests following Procter’s conclusion that he was satisfied with Symond’s claims of having been called a monkey by Singh.
India refused to buy the judgement beyond treating it as a little more than a Sardarji joke. Already incensed at the performance of the men in white coats, no-one in the cricket world’s financial hub was amused. The Board of Control for Cricket in India suspended the tour in disgust and threatened to call it off unless the ban was revoked.
Sensing what letting cricket’s cash cow slip through fingers would entail for the game, the ICC immediately swung into action for damage-control. Chief Referee Ranjan Madugalle, who had been rushed to London following the fiasco involving Hair at The Oval to head a probe commission was similarly sent Down Under in a hurry.
Meanwhile, the governing body removed Steve Bucknor for the third Test at Perth in an unprecedented move to appease India.
The move, coupled with the endeavour of both Indian and Australian cricketers to mend fences in the last few days, have done much to restore a semblance of sanity.
