c Blackwill b Galbraith

Little obnoxious weed. 

Right, let's hear it again. Little. Obnoxious. Weed. 

That's what Hayden had to say about Harbhajan in a radio interview. Uncalled for. Unrepentant. Uncouth. But then, it was coming in a way--this inexcusable, ratty little show of naked Aussie anger. Especially after the smiling, glowing faces we put up post-Sydney, choosing the soothing face-pack of diplomacy over the heat of indignation.

To be called great ambassadors for cricket before anything else. 

Great Ambassadors For Cricket. A vacuous set of words, a clever little trick in lollypop elevation. Just how many times have we heard this clichéd, useless phrase being applied to sing paeans for the Indian cricketers and captain Anil Kumble in particular--during the Sydney fracas and post that? 

And, it was so predictable. When the first reconciliatory step of dropping all charges against an opposing team player to douse the Sydney fire was taken, I had no surprise about the camp it came from. I could have been deep into amnesia and psychotic delirium, but I would have still got it right. I would have known that it was nobody but the Indian cricket team feeling too generous about BradHogg.

Frankly, when Anil Kumble decided to be oh so nice, he should have done a sweet little opposition check. The lack of connection between Australia and Innocence wouldn't have taken anybody ages, including him. I don't know if this was a team that invented sledging, but this surely was the team that made sledging big--using it with intent, frequency and direction.Under the fancy-sounding "mental disintegration", they paraded their bad behaviour and justified it. 

Given this set, fighting every fire with fire without backing-off or smiling an inch would have been better by miles.

But then, ambassadors and other such epithets have always been dearer to us. So Ambassador Kumble did what he did. Did it improve things? Hardly. In the Adelaide one-dayer, Ponting had rough words to say to Harbhajan when he got out.At Sydney, Hayden was at it with the spinner again while Symonds glowered and hurled abuse atIshant. 

But again, we forgot it all in a hurry and decided to be nice. So when VVS Laxman spoke about his IPL Hyderabad team mate Andrew Symonds, he pulled out the glee of discovery people exhibit after bumping into a childhood friend in a bus afterfour decades. No anger, no retort, no words of caution. It was Ambassador Laxman on display. Great. 

So what did we get for this cute pink schoolboy behaviour? We got "little obnoxious weed".

Because no matter how much we want, diplomacy and tosh is not the most important or hugely sought-afterof cricketing attributes. Australia didn't become the champion cricket team of the world by managing international relations commendably; they cornered it by putting up the best cricketing display. If you look at their reign at the top for decades now, you wouldn't find an impressive number of instances of generoussportsmanship or large hearted respect for opposition. They knew it didn't count, it's not what the matches were being played for at the first instance. So they won games, rubbers, tournaments and world cups instead of wasting time on such trivia. They didn't just take out an odd game against West Indies or Pakistan, they did it against every single country. They just didn't defeat the other teams--they broke their teeth, took their cattle and burnt their houses. And if any other team wants to be the new king, it needs to do the same to Australia. 

So there's telling it like it is. The sugar of diplomacy pales out against the ability to play hard and win on the naked field. 

And then, players like Ponting, Hayden, Clarke, Symonds, Hogg and others are not the sorts who are walking this earth with only the white light of truth in their hearts. Take Ponting. He has scant use for opposition and the concept of generosity. His belligerence and arrogance scores over the typical maturity a leader of men is supposed to display. His is rarely the voice of sanity expected of a captain. The others fare equally; they rile and gnaw at a player's concentration through whatever means and then stand on a podium and claim to play hard and fair while smirking. Whatever they deserve, this pack, it can't be unconditional respect. If they deserve some talking- and glowering-back, so be it. 

And it fits. Ambassadors don't play cricket, after all. Galbraith and co. did all their diplomacy outside a cricket field. There may be a lesson in there, if you ask me.