Preaching is easy

This refers to former Australian cricket captain Mark Taylor’s advice that our senior cricketers should calm down Mohd. Siraj. Definitely this is an acceptable advice.

At the same time, senior cricketers like him should first advise their own players, who are habitual sledgers and unsporting characters. We are sure that Travis Head would have provoked Siraj to act like that. No Indian would forget the actions of Rickey Ponting, captain of the Australian team during the Sydney fiasco – “Monkey Gate” Test in 2008.

In fact he himself declared our players out, even when he claimed bounced catches, but the umpires were unmoved. Ironically, Adam Gilchrist, who is considered as a gentleman cricketer, too was guilty of claiming Rahul Dravid’s catch. But our gentleman cricketer, Rahul Dravid, just walked away when the West Indies umpire raised the finger. Hence, I feel that Mark Taylor and his colleagues should first preach the Australian cricketers to be sportive.

Vinay Mahadevan,

Chennai, India