Harbhajan Issue -Full Statement From BCCI

The full statement from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) released on Tuesday:
"The working committee (WC) of the BCCI met today and discussed in detail the totally uncalled for and unjustified and patently illegal ban imposed on Harbhajan Singh by the match referee.
"The WC also supported the statement issued on part of the BCCI on 7th January and the appeal filed.
"The WC also reiterated that the ban imposed on Harbhajan is totally unacceptable.
"It further authorised the president (Sharad Pawar) to take all possible steps at his command and deploy all human and material resources available to get the player cleared of the obnoxious and baseless accusation.
"The president and office bearers were further authorised to take all appropriate decisions and exercise all available options in the situations arising during the course of the hearing.
"The WC of the BCCI took note of all relevant circumstances and developments and decided that the Indian team tour to Australia should continue for the present.
"The BCCI will review the tour and all other developments continuously.
"The BCCI will request the ICC appeals commissioner appointed to hear Harbhajan's appeal to expeditiously dispose off the appeal in terms of regulation H11(e) of the ICC code of conduct for players and team officials.
"The ICC has clarified to the Board that Harbhajan could play till the final disposal of the appeal.
"This is only an interim arrangement.
"The BCCI is of the categorical view, that the matter will have to be finally resolved and the unfair allegation against an Indian player be set aside or withdrawn.
"The WC appreciated the efforts of the president and other officials and also the positive role played by Cricket Australia, the president of the ICC (Ray Mali) and the chief executive officer of the ICC (Malcolm Speed)."

Post Match Happenings At Sydney

After the Second Test at Sydney Mike procter ,the ICC match referee has handed a 3 Test Ban on Harbhajan singh for his racist remarks on Andrew Symonds on day three of the Sydney Test.Procter has made the decision based on the charge brought by on field umpires after they received a complaint from Ricky Ponting.The incident occurred when Harbhajan was batting with Tendulkar and he had an argument with Andrew Symonds during the argument Harbhajan called Symonds a Monkey.Symonds side of story as appeared in the Herald Sun says "Brett Lee had just sent down a delivery and Harbhajan took off down the wicket. When he was returning to his crease, he decided to hit Brett on the backside. I have no idea why he did it."I was standing nearby and when I saw what happened, I thought, 'Hold on, that's not on'. I'm a firm believer in sticking up for your team-mate so I stepped in and had a bit of a crack at Harbhajan telling him exactly what I thought of his antics. He then had a shot back, which brings us to the situation we're facing."In this regard i would like to say that I watched the telecast live on that day and also the replays which clearly showed Harbhajan was walking back to his crease at bowlers end and Symonds was going towards Striker end and when they were passing each other Symonds said something and Harbhajan quickly reacted and Symonds just ignored him and walked away and no television replays showed Harbhajan hit Brett Lee in the back.Imagine in case Harbhajan has hit Brett lee in the back why was he keeping quite without any repelling act and he never said anything about that in the press briefings in support of Symonds.In the entire episode nobody has heard what Harbhajan said to Symonds except Symonds and Tendulkar.While Tendulkar has sent an SMS to Sharad Pawar stating that Harbhajan has never made any racist comments on Symonds and opined that Indian team should play the Perth test only if the ban on Harbhajan is lifted. BCCI has meanwhile filed an appeal with ICC against the ban as Procter has made the decision based on the statements by Andrew symonds the effected party and Michael clarke.They also said both the on field umpires heard nothing and fielding captain Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist have also heard nothing and there was no audio evidence.In the absence of concrete evidence the BCCI strongly felt that the ban is not acceptable to them by any means.There were also widespread anger protests across India against the ban and bad umpiring.
In the Middle of all these events everybody has forgotten the incident wherein Ricky Ponting was given out LBW when he actually nicked a ball on to his pad and Ricky Ponting stood there and was showing the bat to the umpire and subsequently said something to umpire which should have been referred to match referee as dissent by a player as was done in the case of Yuvraj in Melbourne test.This shows the administration has different yardstick for Home team players and Touring team players.

The present situation is Indian team is staying at Sydney and waiting for ICC's decision regarding the ban imposed on Harbhajan and the entire team is supporting Harbhajan in this hour of controversial ban on him.There were also rumours appearing in the Press that the tour will be called off but were refuted by M.V.Sreedhar the media manager of the Indian Team.

India vs Australia Second Test At Sydney

India lost to Australia by 122 runs in the second test of 2007-2008 series at Sydney cricket ground.The match was played from Jan 2 nd to Jan 6 th.India lost because of the controversial umpiring by Steve Buckner and Mark Benson.Between them they gave the following decisions

l Over 13.1, Ricky Ponting on 17 caught behind off Sourav Ganguly but given not out by Mark Benson. Australia 45/2

l Over 29.5, Ponting given out lbw by Benson off thick inside-edge to Harbhajan Singh. 118/3

l Over 46.4, Andrew Symonds on 30 caught behind off Ishant Sharma, given not out by Bucknor. 193/6

l Over 55.3, Symonds on 48 stumped off Harbhajan. Third umpire Oxenford rules him not out. 238/6

l Over 73.3, Symonds on 106 lbw off Kumble. Benson rules not out. 314/7

l Over 101.5, Symonds on 148 stumped off Harbhajan. Not even referred to TV umpire by Bucknor. 421/7

India (1st innings)

l Over 12.3 Laxman on 16 lbw off Lee. Benson rules not out. India 25/1

l Over 78.2 Sachin on 36 lbw off Clarke. Ruled not out by Benson. 293/3

Australia (2nd innings)

l Over 41.1, Mike Hussey on 22 lbw to Kumble. Benson rules not out. Australia 133/2

l Over 53.4, Hussey on 45. caught behind off R.P. Singh. Benson rule not out. 188/2

India (2nd innings)

l Over 33.1, Dravid on 38 ruled out caught behind off Symonds by Bucknor.

l Over 40.2, Ganguly on 51, caught by Clarke off the ground. Benson rules out without referring to TV umpire

The above facts clearly show that the umpiring was biased in favor of home team.

The behaviour of Australian team clearly showed they were intent to win the match by any cost.Indians also are to be blamed to some extent because in spite of bad decisions they could have played the 72 overs without any problem if their batsmen showed little bit of application and fighting qualities like their captain Anil kumble.I don't think Yuvraj and Dhoni are better options for India in tests as their 4 innings shows that they are vulnerable to genuine fast bowling and also good spin bowling on turning tracks which is surprising.Because of pressure to include Yuvraj the batting order was disturbed and Dravid was made to open the Innings.Yuvraj singh was jumping around the crease while he was playing against Brett lee and he has no technique to face bouncers and he has no balance while playing the strokes.Dhoni was clearly out of sorts while playing Brett Lee and was trying to drive chest level deliveries or staying back to the deliveries which were banged in.In the second innings he has showed that he has no good foot work to play spinners and he was padding the balls instead of using his bat and got out by not offering a shot to an incoming delivery from Symonds.Wasim Jaffer is another guy whose lack of technique and high back lift got exposed by genuine quick bowling of Brett Lee.Indian management and think tank should consider all these facts and include Virendra Sehwag and Dinesh Karthik for the Perth Test in place of Waism Jaffer and Yuvraj.They can go for Irfan Pathan as an additional bowler and all rounder by dropping Dhoni.One more thing i wanted add here is Sachin could have taken more strike instead of giving strike to tailenders that cost india few more runs which could have effected the declaration of Ponting and the Draw would have been easier.