Aldonkar wrote:I said "even the BBC" as the BBC uses every opportunity to put India down. They usually back the Aussies as they are, after all, cousins.
Not in cricket. Everyone from Vaughan to Gough was criticizing the Aussie behavior. For them, the Ashes rivalry is paramount, which is fine. No point in taking their views seriously - they're simply piggybacking us to continue their family tiff.
I'm familiar with the English behavior. Aussies are lacking in the same kind of sophistication.
Bharat Sundaresan has a very good article on the topic on cricbuzz:
Siraj - the hero we need to be
tl;dr - don't respond to moments of racism with defensiveness ('what about our casteism' / whatever else), by ignoring it, or by trying to defuse it with humour and 'understanding'. Turn their system against them.
The Siraj incident has been portrayed in the Aussie media as that of a 'sensitive cricketer' not able to 'handle normal banter' . Some random people have been trotted out claiming 'nothing racist was said'. Who cares ? If they have a problem they can take it up with their own police who evicted nearly a dozen people over two days. Our aim is to use their system and their eagerness to virtue-signal, against themselves. Therefore we call out all incidents and force the crowd to act against each other, and the police to exaggeratedly respond if needed.
It suits us because when we play , we play on our terms. England and Australia can scream obscenities, f-words and more to their hearts content when they play each other, but when India plays either of them, the crowds will be made to behave in a manner that is aligned to the sensibilities of our players and not theirs,
even when we tour them. Is it fair ? No, but I don't care. That is power.
As a pithy statement about the US foreign policy said - "America accounts for 4% of world population and uses 25% of its resources, and the aim of US foreign policy is to keep it that way". I may not remember the numbers exactly, but it doesn't matter - big power beyond a point is crass in this manner. Indian financial power in cricket benefits everyone far more so than the Anglos running the game ever did, but first and foremost it ensures we have the best possible circumstances for our cricketers to ply their craft in.