Rahul, you beauty…

Friends of mine know how big a fan I am of this man, Rahul Dravid. When one of them said Rahul should do some domestic duties before he came back to play test cricket after his dismal tour down under, I fumed. I swore by Dravid and shouted on top of my voice that he is the best batsman Indian cricket has had in the recent past and would continue to be in the near future too. I was sure I would never change my opinion, for I love the way Rahul plays his cricket. His exquisite extra cover drive, the silken ondrive, he is the best. The friend responded with a call for me to get out of my dream world, the world where Rahul Dravid, The Wall is the king.

Slightly shaken, I started doing some math on Rahul's recent performances. The stand out was the recent home series against South Africa, the Chennai test to be precise. This is where Rahul joined the 10,000 club and supposedly scored a scintillating century. A second look at the score card told me that my dear Rahul had played a gem of an inning, for himself. The innings he played was as fast as a millipede's quick march, made sure India drew the test, when victory was at sight. A must have won test was drawn, and India went on to lose the next test on a pacy wicket in Ahmedabad. No doubt, the series was drawn but India could easily have won the series convincingly had Rahul paced his Chennai innings to the needs of the team than that of his selfish motives. And now I started agreeing with my friend who had remarked earlier that Rahul needs to play some Ranji before he gets back to his original best at the international level.

The next match of Rahul I watched was the IPL, Bangalore (Vs.) Mumbai. It was a T20 match and Bangalore were chasing Mumbai's 165 in 20. And Rahul opened the innings with Shiv Chanderpaul. He as usual was at his millipedal best. He had no clue as to what Shaun Pollock was bowling to him. The closest I had seen a bowler being that successful before was when I bowled to my two and a half year old son, when he was two and was learning to hold his bat.

As Sunil Gavaskar in the commentary remarked, he was trying to settle down before he opened up, in a T20 match. It seemed like he didn’t want his team to win. I was thinking someone from the Bangalore camp would send a message to Rahul on field that there was no draw in the T20 format and restore some sanity in the middle. It was either a win or otherwise.

Boucher and Kallis managed to pull off a near impossible victory in the end. There would still be people who would say Rahul set a stage for the victory. If I were the coach of the Bangalore team, I would frankly not want a victory set up like this. Nerve-wracking victories like this would cause fatigue and would tire the minds of the team.

Being a big fan of Rahul, I don't want to see him kicked out of cricket someday. I would hence recommend that he took a quick decision. Analyse where he stands today honestly and do something about it quickly. As Greg Chappell told Sourav some years ago, there is life outside cricket too. I am sure Rahul is sane enough to know this truth. A quick decision by him now might save a buck or two for Mr Mallya and make the cricket Bangalore team plays resemble the T20 brand, at least.

Mike Proctor and his Kangaroo court

He was unlucky to have missed this prime cricketing years due to South Africa's international isolation. He is compared to Kapil Dev, Ian Botham & Imran Khan in terms of his allround cricket talent. But that is the past. He would now be remembered for ever as the Mike Proctor, who handed a 3 match ban to Harbajan Singh for his alleged racist comments during the Sydney test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008.

While his intentions of rooting out racism from the cricket field is noble. His decision in putting Harbajan infront of the canon and blasting him with a ban is questionable and dubious. This is considering the simple reason that there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever to confirm Harbajan indeed said those words. No one else in the field or off the field (television channels or viewers) heard or saw Harbajan say the racist comment he is supposed to have.

The most ironic thing is that there were four witnesses supporting Symonds are Ponting – his captain, Clarke, Hayden, Gilchrist. All these witnesses had at somepoint in the match commited something that would make you question their integrity and honesty. They never heard Harbajan hurling racist abuse at Symonds, but still they were witnesses and could say with conviction that Harbajan said those comments.

And why does Proctor find Harbajan guilty? Because the Australians say he is guilty. They argue Harbajan called Symonds a monkey once, during their tour of India recently. And therefore there is every chance he would have said it again, and that amounts to a repeat offence and hence a 3 match ban. Brilliant logic.

And then comes Proctor's interview, where he talks proudly about how he delivered justice to the Australians, especially Symonds. He says "I am South African, and I understand the word racism". So do we Mike, but your understanding a word can't be the basis of calling someone a racist and banning him. Where is the evidence that he said those words?

Procter has set a very dangerous precedent here. Tomorrow, while touring Pakistan Ponting might face a situation where he is getting out to Shoaib Akthar frequently or he is simply afraid of his bowling and hence he might decide to put him off the game. He would be joined by three more of his mates and they would accuse him of beating an Australian player with a bat without any evidence whatsoever. Now, what happens?

Here again you have four Aussies accusing a player from the subcontinent and here too the accused is someone who has used a bat to hit someone before. Would you want to ban him for 3 matches just because the Aussies accuse him? What is the guarantee that the Aussies wouldn't accuse Harbajan or any other player in the world of a uttering a racist remark again?

Effectively Procter has made the cricket field a kindergarten classroom. Where kids cry and accuse their neighbours of something or the other. The cricket players are neither kids nor is the field a classroom. It is hightime the ICC does something to remove incompetent referees like Proctor and expand their elite panel with competent referees. And most importantly they must also put cry babies like Australia in their place.

PS: The greatest joke in all was for this man to support the Australian team on TV, Michel Slater. Mate, the world still remembers the Pontingesque catch you took of Rahul Dravid and your reaction to both the batsman and the umpire, Venkat.