Andrew Symonds - The 'Dirty Boy' of World Cricket

--By Sagar Satapathy, Editor-in-Chief

Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds turned out to be the 'dirty boy' of world cricket. Skipper Ricky Ponting exploits his aggression to target the opposition and they have been successful so far in their new endeavor.

Ironically, Symonds was found provoking opposition players more than a dozen times, but he was never penalized. Reason: Symonds' provocation is so aggressive that opposition players easily get trapped, lose their cool and start taking on him. As a result, they all get penalized and Symonds gets the clean chit. It's all about twisting the rules and Ricky Ponting's lieutenant has been effectively doing this.

Remember the last series between India and Australia in 2007. Symonds targeted Indian players almost in every match and provoked them to explode and lose momentum. Indian youth may be aggressive and energetic. But they lack the mind game techniques played by Symonds and Ricky Ponting. It's surprising that Symonds is involved in every altercation that takes place on the field, but ICC remains a mute spectator.

In the 2007 series, Symonds targeted S Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Sourav Ganguly and even Sachin Tendulkar. His tirade against the Indian players continued, when Indian team reached down under to play the Test and CB Series. Thanks to Symonds, a small issue was blown out of proportion in Sydney and it resulted in the biggest ever cricket controversy that included racism charges. Later, it became clear that it was Symonds who provoked Harbhajan Singh to use offensive language against him.

If that controversy was not enough to spoil the relations between India and Australia, Symonds found himself in the centre of controversy yet again. For the first time in the series, he found his rhythm back and was going all out against Indian bowlers in Sydney. Suddenly, he missed the ball and his stumps were uprooted by 19-year old Ishant Sharma.

When Ishant jumped with joy, Symonds became furious and started abusing Ishant, which provoked Ishant to show a "send-off" finger to Symonds. Ricky Ponting, who has been Ishant's bonny throughout the series, immediately complained to umpires. The matter was reported to match referee and Ishant was fined 15 per cent of his match fee. But Symonds was let off without any warning.

The entire episode takes us back to the colonial era, when nobody dared to raise fingers against white players. Australia has become so powerful in world cricket that ICC umpires and match referees have started treating them as gods of cricket. They simply believe that Australians can't do anything wrong, as they are master of the game and champions. Is this mindset good for world cricket? It's high time other cricket playing nations join hands together and take on the arrogant and ill-tempered Australian players. If you are champs, play like that. Don't bring dirt to the game.

It is true that some Indian players such as Sreesanth and Harbhajan have overstepped the line sometimes. But they are young players as compared to the 30+ Australians. If young Indian players misbehave on the field, the Aussies are equally blamed for provoking them.

A few Australian players including Ponting, Hayden Symonds are bringing the game into disrepute. And, Symonds leads the pack. He must be reined in immediately, or else cricket will become dirtier in the coming days. Players will forget to uphold the spirit of the game and instead will bay for each other's blood. That should be prevented at any cost.