Cricket Needs Strict Discipline
By Aamir A. Salaria
St. Peters, Missouri
What a shame! Once again, the noble game of cricket, known in the history books (now) as the 'Game of Gentlemen' and its good image worldwide has been publicly tarnished and its reputation brought to its knees by the latest incident of Harbhajan Singh slapping his opposite team member, Sreesant, in an IPL match.
The whole world has openly witnessed, what no cricket coach, captain, physio, manager, umpire, administrator or mentor would have ever liked to be even mentioned, to his under-studies in the game of cricket.
What kind of 'role model' Harbhajan is going to be for his own team mates, his own club, his own community, his own nation as well as the whole world of cricket fraternity, spread from Australia to America?
It is often said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but in my opinion, too much money, more than what somebody deserves or even expects, spoils absolutely and Harbhajan Singh’s ugly example bears me out.
It’s high time for the movers and shakers of the gentlemen game of cricket, especially the BCCI and the ICC, to get their heads together and set an example of strict discipline, on and off the field, for everybody, irrespective of his/her race, color, creed, class, ethnicity, age, position and national origin, for many, many generations to come.
In fact, the good name and reputation of everybody at the ICC and the BCCI is at stake. Let's see how they acquit themselves in their moral obligations and ethical norms.
If the ICC and the BCCI fail to act in letter and spirit of the law of cricket and fail to award exemplary punishment to the culprits now, there will be many more ugly incidents like this happening in the cricket field and there will be quite a few more 'Harbhajan Sings' and 'Sreesanth' (on the receiving end), flashed in front of millions if not billions of viewers across the world in future.
Eventually, who will be the ultimate loser in this unfortunate episode? I leave the answer to the enlightened, educated and learned global cricket fraternity.
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