Is the Great Australian team reduced to this?

A fanstastic, cracker of a match at Sydney, which should be remembered for the scintillating contests between bat and ball, not to mention, sublime innings of VVS and Tendulkar, will now be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Racism should not exist anywhere, leave alone sport. If Harbhajan was guilty of making a racist comment, then, he should be punished.

But what kind of a legal process is it, when a guilty verdict is given, when there is no evidence to prove the allegations? The officials on the field did not hear it, so, how does the accuser's words hold weight against the defender's?

What gets my goat about this verdict is, that in most democratic countries (if not all), the justice system works on the premise, that, an individual is innocent until found guilty.

Apparently, Mike Proctor, follows the opposite - Guilty until found innocent. It cant be anything else, when, the 'guilty' verdict was dished out, in spite of lack of evidence.

I'm not sure what is going to happen next - the tour may be called off (though unlikely, and I hope they dont for the sake of cricket), or Steve Bucknor will be replaced to placate India, or it might go on.

But what I do know for sure is this: if the world's most dominant cricket team, and undisputed champion in two forms of the games at least, resort to unsportsmanlike behavior, and the captain running to the umpires, like a kid does to his teacher, to complain about an erring classmate, then, the opponent had challenged them on both the mental and skill aspects. As unlikely as it might sound.

Another teacher analogy vis-a-vis Ricky Ponting can be read here. A brilliant article by Peter English.

Now, if only they had picked Sehwag over Yuvraj.....