The controversy surrounded around Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography “Playing it my way” doesn’t seem to go away easily. The Australian media are heavily incensed at the way the master blaster slammed former Australian great and team India’s Coach Greg Chappell and followed it up against Ponting and Symonds too for unnecessarily dragging the Monkeygate scandal.
Sachin Tendulkar slammed Aussie Cricketers in his book – Playing it my way
The Indian cricket team will go to the island continent for their scheduled four test match series against the Aussies. Indian cricketers will arrive here on December 4. The mood of the Australian media seems to be extremely infuriated at the revelations made by Tendulkar. The mind game has already begun and apart from the Australia’s finest bowling attack, the Dhoni and team will have to face Googlies from the media too.
Just a day after Sachin termed the former Indian coach Greg Chappell as the ringmaster, now the master blaster has taken a dig at the former Australian great Ricky Ponting. The little master lambasted at the Ponting for stretching the Monkeygate controversy which could have been settled otherwise on the field.
The incident took place during India’s tour to Australia in the year 2007-2008. Team India was led by Anil Kumble at that time. The spat involved former Australian all rounder Andrew Symonds and Indian off spinner Harbhajan Singh.
The master blaster discussed the matter in a great detail in the autobiography. According to the extract of the book, What Andrew Symonds assumed to be a racial comment was only North Indian slang. Although Sachin and Harbhajan tried to convince the Australian team, but they refused and proceeded to formally lodge a complaint with the then Match referee Mike Proctor.
Proctor imposed a three test ban for Harbhajan Singh in the wake of that incident. It infuriated the Indian team and they came close to boycott the series. However, the test series continued after ICC took cognisance of the matter. Eventually the decision came in favour of the Indian cricket team. Tendulkar felt that the matter should have been resolved within the players. Rather Ponting and Symonds blew the issue out of proportion.
The calm and composed Sachin was thoroughly disappointed at the approach of Aussies. The master batman was dragged into the controversy when he had to appear before the match officials and bear testimony to what happened on that day. Little master explained to officials that Harbhajan hurled slang on Symonds and there was nothing racial about it.
The release of Sachin’s autobiography brought the controversy back and Australian media are not missing any opportunity to criticize the master through spicy stories. Although it is certain that whatever Tendulkar did was based upon his own righteous thought and in the best interest of the game of cricket. In the book Tendulkar also questioned the lack of sportsman spirit of the Australian players at the Sidney test when their false appeals led to defeat of India in the same series during 2007-2008.
Latest to join the fray is the former Australian wicket keeper Adam Gilchrist. The explosive batsman didn’t comment upon the God of cricket, but announced that he is soon releasing his own autobiography. The autobiography penned by Gilchrist himself is expected to release shortly and it is certain that it will revive the Symonds-Bhajji spat once again.
Tags: Australia, Cricket, Cricketers, Greg Chappell, Master Blaster, Monkeygate Scandal, Playing It My Way, Sachin Tendulkar
