Should Lehmann get a life ban?

Cricket Rage
By Anil - Jan 16, '03
January 18 2003

After the most recent incident to bring disrepute to the game in Australia, it is necessary to ask whether minor bans and fines are sufficient to effectively deal with the the bad boys of cricket.

Steve Waugh's legacy to Australia, and to cricket, has brought another black mark to the game. This time, the racist remarks of one of the Australians in their latest match versus the Sri Lankans in Brisbane was heard by multiple witnesses and could not be denied, as it was the last time this happened in the case of McGrath vs Sri Lanka as told by Roshan Mahanama.

West Indian referee, apologist Clive Lloyd, who recently punished Shoaib Akhtar severely with bans and fines in Zimbabwe, left cricket fans aghast at the unfairness as he let off Darren Lehmann scot free based on a quickly scribbled letter of apology. According to reports, Lehmann had screamed "Black c****" when he got back to the dressing room, clearly audible to the Lankans in the dressing room next door. The crime of the Lankans? Arnold and Sangakarra had just run him out. It seems that a letter can now avert bans and fines for any act, regardless of whether it is the crudest violation of laws. Clearly this man knew how to hand out appropriate punishment, but was afraid to punish an Australian.

Lloyd's inaction follows the much-criticized inaction of spineless compatriot Cammie Smith, who allowed Australian Michael Slater to get away with murder in Mumbai after the latter had, in full view of the stadium and TV cameras, abused batsman Rahul Dravid and umpire Srinivas Venkatraghavan when his claimed catch was turned down. Cammie Smith, who didn't even issue a reprimand to Slater at the time, handed a ban to Indian captain Sourav Ganguly in the very next series after Ganguly slightly raised his bat on an LBW appeal to indicate to the umpire that he had edged it! Not only was Ganguly declared out on that occasion anyway by the umpire, he was also punished by referee Cammie with a one-match ban and a maximum fine.

Back from weak officials to the Aussies. Controversy seems to be a constant companion of the Australian team, and it seems to grow to unprecendented proportions when a team tours their country. It's not JUST Darren Lehmann. Nor is it just McGrath, or Lee, or Warne, or Slater, or Hayden, or Ponting. It's the lessons of rage drummed constantly into the heads of players by their leaders: Steve Waugh and John Buchanan. It's the system which encourages boorish behavior all around.

England was subjected to a barrage of media hostility and hypocrisy on their ongoing tour. While England is guilty of many of these tactics themselves when a team visits, the Australians take it to a new high (or low). When a large gathering of Barmy Army fans called no-ball a few times on Brett Lee's controversial bowling action, a hypocritical Justin Langer, shaking with righteous indignation, had strong words for what he called "disgraceful" fans. But at least xenophobia was not an issue for the English visitors. The same Langer is silent when not just a tiny portion of the crowd, but the entire stadium, harasses the world's best bowler Muthiah Muralitharan with abuse, apart from no-ball calls whenever he comes out to bowl. These spectators even stooped to the abysmal levels of laughing and taunting him when a severe injury in the midst of his bowling spell caused him to retire from the game for a brief period of time. Is this how they host visitors in Australia? Why did referee Lloyd not publicly call for order, and award the game to the Lankans when the audience was constantly out of control?

Hayden recently received a weak 20% fine from weak Pakistani referee Wasim Raja when he destroyed part of the dressing room after being given out LBW in Sydney to his open disapproval. Is this not dissent, does it not bring disrepute to the game? Australians had aggressively charged the umpires repeatedly, and often celebrated a wicket without waiting for the umpire to give it out - even LBWs. And if the umpire dared to give him not out, he would often be subjected to glares and swears. What happened to punishing half the team for dissent, and pulling up the captain even more severely?

To his credit, Australian Malcolm Speed who is also the ICC chief executive, has in the latest case found Lloyd's action in the case of Lehmann insufficent and overruled him by charging Lehmann with breach of Level 3.4 of the ICC Code of Conduct: "using language that disparages another person based on that person's race, religion, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin". This is probably the most positive action from Speed since he took office. It appears that officials from the Indian subcontinent and West Indies are either afraid to act appropriately, or that the particular officials selected by the ICC are the type who will prove their loyalty by being more lenient to Australia and England than the rest of the teams. Hanumant Singh, an Indian referee who punished English as well as Sri Lankan cricketers during England's recent combative and ill-spirited tour under Hussain to Sri Lanka, found himself out of a job soon after his disciplinary actions. It would seem that the ICC does not like assertive officials from India, something that the Lloyds, Cammies, Wasims, and Viswanaths will have undoubtedly noticed.

During their ongoing tour, Sri Lanka has been subjected to harassment right from the moment they landed in Australia. Not only were they ill-treated by customs officials, there was no customary host board representative on hand to receive them, and they were directed to the wrong hotel. Is this how you treat a guest? Stadium audiences full of aggressive Aussies who abuse the Lankans certainly seem to think so.

The whole infrastructure is set up to be hostile to a visiting team, and this is particularly aggravated when a team from the Indian subcontinent, or the West Indies, visits. Sri Lankan cricketer Roshan Mahanama had reported that Glen McGrath called members of the Lankan team "black monkeys", something that McGrath vehemently denied but was widely believed to be true. Brett Lee screamed vulgar obscenities at a young debutant batsman from the subcontinent right after knocking him down with a vicious bouncer that hit his head, far from showing any concern over a potentially fatal injury. West Indian bowler Marlon Black was beaten up almost to death on the streets on Melbourne by four hoodlums.

Local Australian umpires openly and unashamedly give bad decisions to tourists in practice matches, and favor their team to a point that is unbelievably dishonest. Fortunately they cannot do so at least in Test matches any more. The Aussie media writes hostile and combative articles about a visiting team, often encroaching upon the privacy of a cricketer they are targetting. Ex-umpires will make negative public comments about a visting team uninhibitedly and the Australian media will gleefully report them widely, thus putting pressure on a bowler such as Murali even before he arrives, and egging on rowdy and wildly parochial stadium crowds across the country in their abusive barracking. The Aussies have to be taught that it's just a game -- not a war, and not an excuse to openly indulge in shameless xenophobia.

When the Australian system gets away with these tactics, clearly using them to their own benefit to win matches, others are forced to try and follow suit. Sledging tactics are now common in many teams, stemming from Steve Waugh's pathetically cheap and base strategy of "mental disintegration". Neighboring New Zealand is following in their footsteps, often subjecting the Indian team on their just-concluded tour to an ugly and mean-spirited experience: all the common elements were present including a hostile media, unhospitable cricket board, abusive barracking audiences in Auckland, etc.

The cricketing system in Australia is beyond repair, and the disrepute that threatens to destroy the game can only be corrected by taking strong action. Ban Lehmann and save the game.