Aussies too harsh on Symonds

IT is apparent that Cricket Australia and the tour management in England did a bit of overkill when they fined and suspended dashing allrounder Andrew Symonds for two games in the Natwest Trophy series.

Symonds was found to have had a late night and was smelling of alcoholic fumes when he arrived on the ground for a loosener. It did not go down well with skipper Ricky Ponting and the management, who in consultation with CA punished the offender.

Now we are not for a moment siding with Symonds. He should have known better and known to adhere to the rules and regulations cricketers are expected to observe.

As for us, it would have done Australian cricket a lot of good had they fined Symonds and allowed him to play. By suspending him what happened to Australian cricket?

Their plans and strategy went haywire and their poor thinking led to egg on their faces and utter humiliation, beaten not only by England, but by Bangladesh whose form was not worth talking about.

Had Symonds played Australian cricket would not have had to face shame. After missing the first two games where the world champions were ground to the dust, Symonds came back with a vengeance and showed that he is indispensable with a demoralising batting effort where he blasted the England bowlers all over and over it at the Durham ground.

His innings raised the Aussie game allround and the cock a hoop Englishmen were brought down to earth, losing their second clash against the Aussies by 57 runs.

Then he helped his team gain sweet revenge with a tantalising bowling effort (5 for 18) to down Bangladesh.

One hopes that when faced with a similar situation, the Aussies would think hard instead of cutting their nose to spite their face.

Media bashing

The English and Australian media are notorious to take visiting teams to the laundry from the time they touchdown and attempt to unnerve and unsettle their spirit and game.

The British media was quick to pounce on the Symonds incident and go to town trying to break the Aussies. But the kangaroos are made of sterner stuff and they swatted the criticism and the unsettling tactics and came back hard to bash the home team.

Then the British media continued the unsettling tactics by trying to pin the world's leading bowler Shane Warne on a dubious attempted sex charge.

The supposed to be victim Laura had said that she was not aware that Warne was married.

Now Warne is well known not only in England, but the world over. Who was she trying to fool? Obviously the English media.

Cricket Australia knocked the stuffing out of this charge and quite rightly allowed Warne free.

That action also stuffed the mouths of the English press.

The victim was probably looking for a quick buck or cheap publicity like the detractors of Michael Jackson did and failed miserably.

I was there covering the tour for the ANCL Group of Newspapers when the Aussie media began a cohesive attack on the Lankans from the moment they touched down in Australia.

It was sickening to read the newspapers, because not one day went without a writer saying something that was unsettling to the Lankans. Even before umpire Ross Emerson was to call Muralitheran in the game against England in Adelaide, newspapers were hinting as to what was to happen.

The bubble finally burst when true to form Muralitheran was 'called'.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. It was from that moment onwards that skipper Arjuna Ranatunga threw caution to the winds, took on not only umpire Emerson, the Aussie players and also the media and finally made them accept and realise that in Ranatunga they were meeting their Waterloo.

Unable to accept the slap by Ranatunga, the media began a bash to try and suspend Ranatunga from all forms of the game for life.

At that time, Ranatunga had a presided equal to the task and one who supported him Thilanga Sumathipala who got some of the best legal eagles in Australia to defend Ranatunga and what happened next is history now.