Sydney Cricket Test

Everyone and his brother is writing/calling/discussing about the Sydney cricket test (and the aftermath). I have strong feelings about many aspects of that game. I spent a lot of time last night reading up many blogs and articles about it. I will just link some of the articles where I found the author's opinion coincided with mine, instead of typing up all my frustrations! However, I felt I wanted to describe the following couple of points:

1. Mike Procter's "judgment"

Mike went ahead and pronounced Harbhajan Singh guilty of racism. And there has been a tremendous amount of pressure on him to explain the basis of his decision. He has not been able to show any thread of evidence, whatsoever, beyond a couple of "witnesses". And these witnesses are the same blokes whose overall credibility has a big asterisk next to it. He also had a couple of Indian players saying exactly the opposite. And one of these Indians (Tendulkar) is respected worldwide for his integrity. Let us keep the asterisks and the respect aside for a minute. Aussies were the accusers in this case and the Indians were the accused. When there was absolutely no evidence (at least none that has been disclosed so far), how can the judge just believe the accuser and rule the accused guilty? And after all this, he dares to say that he was "convinced beyond reasonable doubts" that Harbhajan Singh was guilty. What happened to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty"?

2. Umpiring

Pretty much everyone would agree that Geoffrey Boycott's granny would have done a much better job than Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson (combined) in this match. Aussie public has been gracious in acknowledging it. There has been a generous outpour of support and sympathy for the Indian team. Aussies have also been gracious enough to deplore their own team and their own captain for their behavior throughout (and at the end of) the match. However, a small section of them have said that umpiring in the Indian sub-continent used to be biased 20 years back, and hence Indians should not really cry when decisions go against them. I agree that umpires used to be biased in that age. However, can you punish the current generation because of what their grand dads did?! Given that racism used to be prevalent in Australia a few generations back, can racism be justified now against them? Can we use the same logic and call the whole "Bhajji episode" a non-issue and move on?

Here are links to a few articles that coincided with my line of thinking. There were more, but I cannot find them now!

Why Ricky Ponting should be banned - I really like this!
Justice, not world domination
Open your eyes, Ricky