Aussies let's play cricket

Symonds and Team India are again at loggerheads and once again at Sydney. Gautam Sheth finds out in retrospective how even kids while playing cricket dominated the proceedings more than playing.

In the movie Taxi no.9211, Nana Patekar while going to work gives his son a soft pasting. He sees his son fielding in a game of cricket, and asks him why is he fielding when the bat with which all the other kids playing was owned by him? He explained his incense in one sentence saying that “If you want to play cricket, play like Sachin and not Mohd.Kaif.” He described how kids played cricket in the lanes and by lanes of Mumbai in a beautiful way.

After seeing the recent spat between Symonds and Ishant Sharma, the formers behaviour reminded me of the kids who owned the bat and dominated batting as well as the proceedings of the game. He felt so bad after getting out (like the bat owning kid would) that he uttered some words which he thought would not come back to him. The young Ishant did not hold anything back and gestured to Symonds to move on to the pavilion instead of opening his mouth.

According to the laws of cricket, Ishant’s was fined 15% match fees for a level 1.6 offence. But millions and millions of viewers around the world also saw Symonds saying something to Ishant too. Why he was not charged? In his encounter with Bhajji, Symmo even then was seen provoking or let’s be conservative saying something to Bhajji. Why he was not questioned even then?

No one likes to lose, but every time you cannot win. It looks as if, Australian’s have realised that they are slipping on their strong grip on the number one position. And on top of that, India is the team that is threatening them the most. It is just that they are unable to cope up with the competition and are trying their hand at everything to unsettle the rampaging Team India.

The game went down to the wire. If Gambhir or Uthappa had stayed for some more time, the result would have been different. Australians have shown their dislike in some way or the other for dominance of the exuberant Indian youth. From the T20 championships they have made comments on the new look Indian team.

They have reservations about our team’s attitude. They don’t like it if our team makes noise. Why only our team and not any other team in the world? The answer is simple, we are the most difficult to beat. Even bowling champ Brett Lee made a statement saying that “Team India is the most difficult team to beat.”

Team Oz, if someone is catching up you should not hate it, but become more competitive and try putting up a resistance to the fight. The Australian team became number one only after toppling the fiery West Indians dominance. And now India looks to be doing the same with Australia. Till then I would urge team Australia, to play cricket.