Seething India force hectic parleys

NEW DELHI/SYDNEY: The resentment gripping the Indian squad in the wake of the Sydney Test insult can be gauged by the mood at the team meeting at Sydney on Monday morning which authorised skipper Anil Kumble to tell the board that a clean chit for Harbhajan and a change of umpires was the bottomline. The resentment of the players also shaped BCCI's response. The seething players sat in the coach that was to take them to Canberra for a couple of hours before returning to their rooms. BCCI saw their point of view and immediately informed the hotel authorities that it would pick up the tab for the extended stay. The threat implicit in not travelling to Canberra was clear — even though a tour pullout was the last resort, the team would not play without issues being resolved. BCCI working committee is holding an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the standoff and firm up its strategy. With both sides likely to suffer financial losses and an unprecedented disruption of the cricketing calendar if the Indians return, Cricket Australia seemed anxious for an early de-escalation. James Sutherland, CA chief executive, said he was confident the tour would progress and asked Kumble and his Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting to sort out their differences. That is going to be difficult considering that relations between the two teams have hit an unprecedented low. The confrontation over Bhajji has led Kumble to revoke the understanding the two sides had on taking the captain's word on contentious catches. Kumble is believed to have argued that the arrangement is off since Ponting refused to walk when he was clearly out. It was on the basis of the Aussie skipper's testimony that Sourav Ganguly was declared out in the second innings of the Sydney Test. But in its toughly worded appeal against the ban order, which has been put together by DDCA president Arun Jaitley and lawyer Amit Sibal, son of science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, BCCI has said that there was no evidence, audio or video, to back the allegation levelled by "interested parties" against Harbhajan. The appeal said that there ought to be "clear, convincing and unimpeachable" evidence to justify a ban which has serious consequences for a player. The BCCI response was broadly crafted at a meeting of senior board members at the residence BCCI president Sharad Pawar. Those who were part of the huddle — Rajeev Shukla, I S Bindra and Jaitley — were unanimous that while BCCI should try to avert a pullout, it could not be out of sync with the popular mood where a sense of shock and disbelief rapidly gave way to angry protests. "The unreasonable order without any material on record is unacceptable. And we are not ready to accept any arbitrary decisions," said BCCI vice-president Shashank Manohar. BCCI grew more determined after it learnt that match referee Mike Procter, a former South African player of apartheid vintage, simply went by the words of Andrew Symonds — who Harbhajan allegedly abused — Matthew Hayden and Michael Clarke. Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar said they did not hear any abuse. Even the two umpires denied hearing Harbhajan hurl the abuse. Though ICC's arbitration procedure may take 10-15 days, BCCI is pressing for an early disposal even if Harbhajan is cleared to play in the Perth Test. The board is keen that the matter be settled in the spinner's favour much before the final Test is played at Adelaide. As it settled into a battle of nerves with ICC and Cricket Australia, the board also lodged a complaint against Aussie spinner Brad Hogg for allegedly abusing Kumble. Hogg has been accused of uncivil language against the Indian skipper when Kumble, clearly playing for time on the last day of the Sydney contest, was confabulating with MS Dhoni. "Get ready soon, you b*****d" the spinner, who had a luckless time against the Indians, is said to have shouted. It was not clear whether the tit-for-tat complaint was an afterthought. But sources admitted that they expected it to drive home the perils of the decision to haul up players on the basis of complaints from rival teams. "All you have to do is to accuse the best players of the other side of one misconduct or another," said a source involved in drafting of the appeal. BCCI's calculation is that India's status as an economic powerhouse in the game should make ICC blink. Cricket Australia which stands to lose a lot if the tour gets scrapped was already trying to douse fires. There were indications ICC, faced with a tough BCCI, may have expressed its willingness to drop Bucknor and Benson but was citing logistical problems — there are only eight umpires on the elite panel and with three series on, it may not be possible to shuffle them in time for the Perth Test. Moreover, since Bucknor, a Jamaican, cannot officiate in the matches featuring West Indies, the task gets even more difficult. But BCCI has argued that two more umpires can be accredited to the panel at short notice. A pullout will not be without costs as a penalty of $2.53 million, suspension of engagements with Australia which are the champion team and disruption of the international cricket calendar will follow. But the board is not in a position to step back in view of calls for a strong retaliation.