In front of a smart young Mumbai audience who gave the Aussie cricketers a taste of their own medicine, the youthful Indian team thrashed the Australians again.

The last time they defeated the Aussies was a few weeks back, in the semifinals of the Twenty20 World Cup, which the Indians went on to win. This victory proved that the Indians are indeed champions in this abbreviated format of the game, a formalization of the "gully cricket" played all over the country.

The seniors of the Indian cricket team -- the Big Three -- were not in the ranks, having been driven out by relentless rhetoric from Indian media and BCCI.

Yet, the Indian media and journalists (and for that matter, the people who run the BCCI) are the same old buddhas (oldies). They do not reflect the smart youth in the Indian team and audiences, and certainly do not hold themselves to the standards they hold our cricketers.

Unexposed to the outside world, subservient to the west, these journalists want to impose their outdated attitudes on us.

Indian media want us to honor the Aussies as if they were a model team, a sporting team who play fair at all times. They would have us believe that Aussie spectators are uniformly courteous to our team, friendly hosts who applaud our achievements on field and treat us like royalty off field.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Ask any of our cricketers. Or Muralitharan. Or Monty Panesar.

When Andrew Symonds hurled personal abuse at Irfan Pathan and Sreesanth, and at their families, Indian media looked the other way. All they could talk about was the rhetoric from the Aussie media about "monkey noises", until it became a self-fulfilling prohecy in Mumbai. Unmindful of the fact that "monkey noises" have never been considered racist in India, and that Symonds often made strange faces at the players and the spectators that looked undeniably simian (see image below taken from TV footage.)

When in a foreign land, adapt to their culture, instead of expecting millions of people to adapt to your culture. Monkey noises is Aussie racism, not Indian. On the other hand, abusive language against an opponents mother is unacceptable in Indian culture, even though it may be considered harmless in Aussie culture.

Indian media tell us to take the insults in stride and not respond in kind.
They want us to "do the right thing" even when opponents start the ugliness.
They urge us to turn the other cheek when slapped.

Sorry, guys. No can do.

Young and fiery fast bowler Sreesanth is told to rein himself in by our journalists, don't sledge, be quiet and respectful, focus solely on bowling and taking wickets -- even though McGrath and Warne who have always been an abusive disgrace on the field were lauded for their magnificent aggression by the same people. Warne, who aside from abusiveness on field against cricketers and umpires, has been involved in countless scandals involving drugs, abuse of women, extra-marital affairs.. the list goes on. Our media revere this guy even though he has consistently been a failure against Indian batsmen. Whereas Harbahajan, who has always been successful against the Aussies, is taken to task by the Aussies as soon as he shows some aggression.

The Aussies themselves have been strident in their criticism of the on-field aggression by the Indians. Hypocrisy apparently knows no bounds, as these are the same people who masterminded so-called "mental disintegration" tactics, have always preached to the world that sledging and rough talk is part and parcel of cricket. If you can dish it out, why not learn to take it some of it back?

There was no comment from Indian media when Aussie cricketers were found to be using terms such as "black monkeys" to refer to Sri Lankan cricketers by current ICC match referee Roshan Mahanama. Note that these are the actual cricket team members using such terms, not just a few rowdies in the stands. ICC took no action.

No, our media doesn't care about any of this -- however they do want Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Sourav Ganguly to retire voluntarily.

I say, retire the old fogies writing these articles!

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