Jayeeta Majumdar Singhee

Just when you thought the monkey was off our backs, it clambers right back on. Last evening, a source I can’t name, but who I know to be very close to Australian players and officials, emailed me:

Bajji lied, but the Aussies have no use for him anyway. Sachin lied, too, and that has shocked the Aussie team – they hold him in very high regard, but not any more.

The source contradicted general perception that the deal worked out behind the scenes had the cooperation, and backing, of the Australian players. Cricket Australia, he tells me, had to twist the arms of the players, almost to breaking point, before they consented to back off and let sleeping monkeys lie.

Read the whole essay here. Prem Panicker is definitely one of the best cricket journalists we have in India. Reading him is truly a pleasure....and one point he makes in this essay here really drives home. The fact that the media in India makes page one news only that what sells, and what it likes.

For example, Roebuck's latest stinging comments on the subject of the BCCI’s behavior does not find mention in any of our page one space.

India’s performance in chartering a plane to take the players home in the event of an independent judge finding against them in the current case counts among the most nakedly aggressive actions taken in the history of a notoriously fractious game. If this is the way the Indian board intends to conduct its affairs hereafter, then God help cricket.

It is high time the elders of the game in that proud country stopped playing to the gallery and considered the game’s wider interests. India is not some tinpot dictatorship but an international powerhouse and ought to think and act accordingly. Brinkmanship or not, threatening to take its bat and ball home in the event of a resented verdict being allowed to stand was an abomination. It sets a dreadful precedent. What price justice now?