All He Did Was Show Up

What did Muralitharan do? I don't get it. Was it something he said? Maybe I didn't catch it. (I've been busy working on some long, esoteric undergrad essays recently; it's quite possible that it could have slipped past me.) All I can remember is him minding his own business, trying to get back to full fitness for the upcoming international cricket season. Then one day Sreesanth started talking shit to the Australians on the field. Then Harbhajan joined him. Then the Australians talked back. Then some Indian fans were photographed letting out their Ids on Andrew Symonds. And now somehow Murali is going to have to grin and bear the racial abuse of the entire hill section at the Adelaide Oval? I don't quite see the link.

(Congrats to Jason Gillespie, by the way, for helping fuel the fire of idiocy that is steadily burning around this non-issue. Thanks, Dizzy – you can now go back to loading Wolfmother's road gear into the tour bus, or whatever it is that you do with your mullet time these days.)

Comments

[Ottayan]

This has got nothing to do with Sreesanth or Harbhajan.

Australia fondly remembers Murali as a 'chucker' and they are not going to let him forget it.

[Outside The Line]

I'm not so sure, Ottayan. Of course, most of the abuse will be chucker-related, since that's pretty much the only thing most Aus fans know about Murali (he's "the chucker," Ranatunga was "the fat fuck cheating captain," etc).

But what the ODI series in India will probably do is to amplify that hate, and add an explicitly racist angle to it. And the more Jason Gillespie talks about in the paper, the more it will be in the public consciousness, and the worse it will be on the field... which will then breed even MORE press, more attention, more fake indignation, and so on.

[Ottayan]

The Aussies cannot afford an Wankhede.
After creating a scene about racism, they know the whole world will be looking at them.
Even if one spectator as much as scratches his armits, they will start feeling the weight of the world.