The whole cricketing row is amusing and at the same time disheartening. This is what happens when sports folks become page3 'celebrity items' and 'socialites' (all politicians are) start running the show.
To be honest if Bhajji really called Symonds a monkey, it was a monumentally stupid thing to do even if not intentionally malicious. As a page3 item boy Bhajji must have been aware of the rukus a act of a spectator in India making monkey action at Symonds caused. If after all the rukus (and probably justifiably - racism in any form cannot be condoned) Bhajji had the stupidity to use it without meaning harm he is a fool of top order who deserves to sit out for the same.
One can argue that Australians probably must have also hurling abuses and knowing Australian team on cricket, I'd be very pleasantly surprised if they were not be viciously/criminally abusive on field so why not pay them back. Agreed. The way to do that is to report every such incident and use our financial muscle in ICC to then punish them severely. If ICC still ruled that its all part of the game THEN use the same abuse words back at the Aussies and their well wishers. Since Cricket Australia and ICC would have already ruled those terms acceptable- Indians couldn't be faulted.
Learn from Tennis. They have introduced a challenge system where a player can contest a decision of the chair umpire when TV replays etc are called into picture. Simple format and no reason why it can't work for cricket? Alas our clueless politician manning the BCCI spend so much time chasing the glamour they have no time to think of making the sport less error prone. Equally likely they are simply too incompetent to think of such simple measures.
A recent piece is papers also suggest implementing some pay cut feature against obviously wrong decisions on the umpires. Again such a system will act as hindrance to malicious incompetence. Given the financial stakes involved, there is simply no excuse for incompetence in the sport any more. Instead of fighting over issues by threats, its time to reform the sport. Otherwise it will simply degenerate into mud slinging exercise.
