4) clearly you don't know how much worse the Australians used to be, in the days of fast bowlers following through and hurling despicable insults, spitting, swearing at the batsmen. Compare that to now, with Brett Lee bowling at 150km/ph, sometimes following through and saying to Laxman "mate, you had no idea where that was, I'm too quick" - to which VVS laughs, smiles and says "remember Kolkata?". What you saw in Sydney was strained and fatigued players on both sides in a hellish environment created by poor umpires with no control. 5) Agreed, but do you drop a batsman just because he pads up and leaves a ball which is going to hit middle stump (Dhoni and M Clarke)? You may say Bucknor has been a long time deterioriation (and I agree), but the umpire should be sacrosanct. 6) Agreed that Harbhajan may have been provoked. But equally Ponting was defensive and was being pushed by the journo. Imagine Ganguly responding to questions like "so Saurav, the 2 left gloves with 9 minutes to play, that was a deliberate time-wasting tactic wasn't it, just like bringing out shinguards for the last ball of the over?" (I'm comparing Saurav to Ponting as they are both emotion-charged cricketers. 7) Wrong - read Roebuck. You can slow overs down on the first 4 days (both teams did) with no real consequence as time is made up. If you slow overs on day 5 and bad light comes, that's it, no more overs. Hence my disgust with the shinguards coming out, over rates and 2 left gloves.
