The Indian cricket team is the biggest bunch of whingers on earth. They have all the clout because they have the biggest TV audience and they think they can throw their toys out of the cot as it pleases them and bully the rest of the cricket playing nations. Anyone remember the Test without Test status in South Africa in 2001 after the Idians whinged about the English umpire Mike Denness?

LondonBok, London,

"We have a lot better idea of how to treat each other than what the hooligan English do. James NT, OZ"

Speaking of hooligans, didn't Wayne Carey, one of your most treasured AFL stars, just get arrested in Miami for smashing a glass into his girlfriends face? Very classy.

Edward, London,

Carl, ciricet is run by white middle class males, any time there is an incident the Asian teams are always the culprits. You look at the Harbhajan / Symonds incident - Symonds went off on one using abusive/ intimidating language for Harbhajan complimenting Lee for a good delivery - he provoced Harbhajan and Harbhajan gets the punishement. Again Sharma (19 year old) takes Symonds stumps out - he gets abusive and guess what Sharma gets the puishment. Until ICC start to send strong signals to the Australian team this kind of behaviour will continue. All of teh current iincidents that are in teh news are as a result of Australian players for provocing the Idians - but guess what th white middle class male will never see route cause of the problem - but the end result, instead of dealing with teh route cause they continue to let the Australians get away with it.

Haydon - asking to get into boxing ring with a 19 year old, thats the attitude - this doesn't really feel like cricket to me.

KP, Leicester, UK

James surely as you come from such a cultured society is it therefore not beneath you to comment on such a barbaric society as ours?

I would also suggest those in glass houses should not throw stones....Dec '05 - Cronulla Beach Feb 04 - Sydney

Aboriginal Communities have a 50% chance of not seeing 50!!!!!

Very Cultured....

M19 Blue, Manchester, England

Vulgar australian team and cheap radio jockeys...two to tango. Would be interesting to see the likes of Hayden, Symonds and Ponting salivating after money in IPL. Just hope they get the same treatment back.

sherlock, LA,

There are more important issues in the world.

Like the Spice Girls not finishing their world tour.

Sir Cedrick Hardwicke, London, England

I presume if the white man says something the brown man should accept it but when the roles are reversed then it is not acceptable. This whole issue has shown how racist the whole cricketing community is and that goes for most of those who write into the news papers and blogs.

gopal, Essex, UK

This is what the English don’t understand about society.



Australians don’t fight each other in pubs. Two Australians who barrack for different teams can go to the football together and watch their two sides play and there will never ever be a fight.



We have a lot better idea of how to treat each other than what the hooligan English do.



The English have the reputation of the English hooligan disease all around the world because the English cant hold their alcohol and want to fight every one.



Ask any of the European soccer nations who the biggest hooligans in the world are – The English.



Australians can verbalise each other all day and there is never any fighting that goes on.



Australian society is much more cultured than English society.

James Windsor, Alice, NT

Farce is right. Don’t the Indian team management realise what fools they look like, running crying to mummy every time the big boy down the street calls someone a name? Get on with it. The best retort to sledging is to smile sweetly, say nothing, score runs/take wickets and win the game. If India were winning we wouldn’t hear a thing about this. People may not like sledging (I don’t) but, like it or not, it’s here to stay. Yes, the Aussies are “good” at it, but again, it’s up to other countries to either deal with it or run to mummy.

Bill, Augusta, US

Two years ago Cricket Australia carried out research which showed our players were seen as cardboard cut-outs and had no personality.

Is it any wonder why?

All summer the Australian cricketers have been prevented from telling the public what they really think of Harbhajan. It seems it's okay for the Indian to throw stones but every time one of our guys tries to return serve, CA steps in.

Hayden’s comments were meant to be a light-hearted FM radio interview promoting poor ticket sales for the second one-day final in Brisbane on Tuesday,. Harbhajan has taken Hayden's comments lightly, telling Indian reporters the comment was hardly worth responding to.

In no other sport are competitors muzzled like our cricketers. Most sports, like AFL, rugby, soccer and even basketball, thrive on controversy. Its part of the game and fans love it.

I just can't wait for the Indian Team to leave our shores. I once looked at them as being worthy Test opponents, now I just cringe. I will not support cricket in any form while India are in the country, and the BCCI continues to do as it pleases. CA, how gutless are they, continually bending at the demands of the BCCI, and yet sanction there own for minor infringements. Go Home BCCI....Good riddance.

The whole problem is that the Indian players are treated like gods in India and it goes to their heads. Surely they should realise by now that they won't get the same treatment here. We've had a lot of "reap what you sow" comments from Indian fans yet they fail to see that is the Indians reaping what they are sowing, after the disgraceful behaviour in India last year. The Indians have been mouthing off since before the tour began, but that’s all OK whilst the Australians are told to shut up. I didn't hear too many of the Indian fans condemning their own players when Michael Clarke had to walk away from the crease several times during a test match in this series because of all the mouthing off, or dare I say sledging, that was going on around him. Cricket may well have originally been a "gentleman’s game" but we live in the 21st century where most sports are ultra competitive because they are driven by money. Some people need to take off their rose coloured glasses and pull themselves into line.

Frustrated Australian players are already angry at what they believe has been a lack of support for Andrew Symonds and Ricky Ponting, in particular, when CA moved to downgrade a racial abuse charge against Harbhajan last month.

They are annoyed that CA continues to kowtow to a constantly threatening and whining Board of Control for Cricket in India despite India maintaining its reputation as the worst behaved team in the world.

Four Indian players have been reported by match referees this summer and three found guilty, along with one-day captain MS Dhoni being warned for wearing illegal wicketkeeping gloves that could have resulted in a five-Test or 10 one-day match ban.

Harbhajan is a serial offender who has been found guilty of various offences by match referees five times.

Remarkably Symonds, the abuse victim during the Sydney Test, was allowed to make his feelings clear during a brief, pre-recorded interview during Tuesday night's Allan Border Medal dinner. It was an interesting watch as the Aussie players let their hair down so to speak. Maybe Hayden was just continuing the trend the next day.

Carl, Nottingham, England

Hayden clearly must have understood the consequences of calling an opposition player a weed in the environment we have today. Would Harbijhan calling him an ignorant redneck in return been tolerated - probably not.

The Indian sledging has been on the ground and we need to be careful when we start doing it off the ground. However this is generally how long sustaining rivalries are formed and when the game is a lopsided as it is currently, then any opportunity for this type of thing should be OK in my opinion.

Its not just CA that pander to the BCCI - it is the whole ICC. I think this is where the problem stems from. Agree that they are behaving like spoilt brats and that nothing that is going on now suggests anything is likely to change soon.

Best answer as it always has been is to give it to them on the ground. Keep beating them and eventually this stuff becomes meaningless. Am I the only one that thinks Shreesanth looks stupid for carrying on against Symonds after he basically wins the series off his own bat, Sharma goes for 70 in his 10 overs and then gives Symonds a send off at 5/300 or perhaps Harbijhan carrying on when he gets 5 wickets in a series at about 50 each??

I think the generalist view is that they are not helping themselves and it hardly matters when we continue to beat them easily.

You dont see Tendulkar or Kumble acting like this for good reason. They let their on field performances do their talking for them.

Todd, Rusliup, England

Go Haydos, go. One would think that 43 team offences against 25 is, to say the least, conclusive. Perhaps the BCCI are calling for a total end to sledging because they find this 'competition' too easy to win and would prefer more of a challenge!! On a cricket field, of course, not in a boxing ring!!

R. P. Dixon., London,

I didn’t think it was possible for India’s tour of Australia to plunge any deeper into the farce hole, but the fallout from the playground spat between Matthew Hayden and Harbhajan Singh has unearthed a few more mounds of dirt and done precisely that.
Personally, I didn’t find anything distasteful in Hayden calling Harbhajan an “obnoxious little weed” on Brisbane radio. The comment wasn’t racist or overly vulgar. It wasn’t even that rude. It was one man publicly expressing his opinion of another, and one that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone. Despite Brett Lee’s sugar-coated claims to the contrary, there is no love lost between these two highly competitive teams - even less between serial sparring buddies Hayden and Harbhajan. Why try to hide, even dilute, the truth?
There’s no such thing as bad publicity, and the torch of aggravation has been lit again ahead of the tri-series finals between the two teams. And when oftentimes we bemoan the rehearsed and banal contributions of most sports stars, I say let’s tolerate, even rejoice in, the odd bit of lampooning.
Nevermind it was a little like the pot calling the kettle black. Harbhajan stopped short of calling Hayden an “obnoxious big weed”, but even Hayden himself would not be surprised if some of his adversaries held him in such regard. Hayden plays the game to win, and isn’t afraid to dabble in the darker arts to get under the skin. Harbhajan responded by suggesting Hayden wasn’t the most popular player in world cricket. Again, it was an expression of opinion of one man by another. Again, it took nobody by surprise. I can’t imagine either player took much offence.
What has pushed this latest situation/mini-scandal/brouhaha into the realms of the silly is Cricket Australia’s insistence on a dsiciplinary hearing into Hayden’s comments, the subsequent reprimand and ludicrously forced apology that the big man made. “I maintain my innocence, my intentions were never to denigrate cricket or anyone. But in the spirit of cricket I respect and accept the decision,” Hayden said.
Innocence? Never intended to denigrate anyone? Of course you did, Haydos. That’s why you said those things. The point is, your comments should have been allowed to go through to the keeper. What constitutes a “detrimental public comment” is in desperate need of redefinition. Even hyper-sensitive India were mostly unmoved by the comments, saying no action would be taken and no complaints made.
Commonsense and discretion should have prevailed, and should prevail in the future. Has censorship got so out of hand that a professional sportsman can’t say what he thinks within the bounds of decency? Of course, there must be a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Vilification on racial and other prejudicial grounds and slanderous comments should be, and are, taboo.
But, in a democratic society that prides itself on the liberating powers of free speech, if one cricketer can’t call another cricketer a weed without censure, then we all may as well just pack up and go home.

El Tel, Melbourne, Australia

If the Indians cannot hack being called names then they should runaway and join the English Premier League or any soccer league for that matter, where people with thin skins and thinner shins prance and dolly around in the name of sport and cry foul when the going gets tough.

George, Perth, Australia

How old are these people...CA handle most issues disgracefully, and the ICC are even. A pre-school teacher would be better equipped to deal with this.
If players are going to be sanctioned for expressing an opinion then they should blanket ban them from ALL media and cut out stump microphones from all telecasts. We can just listen to the garbage that drips from commentators mouths.
Storm in a tea cup.
I think the rest of the world need to realise that we Australians are out to win.
It may make us unpopular, but who cares?
Like America, many countries do not like us, simply because they are just jealous of our success.
We would rather be hated by other countries, than be “gracious losers” like the hopeless poms.
If we sound a bit racist, in mocking them & their culture & language, they should not be offended, it is their fault for coming here & not understanding our send of humour

Billy, Lancing, England

ICC - Defunct
CA - Defunct
Indian cricket team ability - Defunct
Indian Bloggers and Indian Team Management - High Distinction in Self-preservation 101.

Ravi, Dehli, India