The media's selective amnesia

What Prem Panicker said in his article on Tuesday should in fact have been obvious to everyone long ago -- the fact that blaming Sourav Ganguly for everything under the sun has become almost pathological.

It all started with Steve Waugh and the Australian media contingent in March 2001, and now it has become pretty much universal. So much so, that I find my thoughts crystallizing into three definite points:

1) Journos and commentators in general love to criticize;
2) More often than not they don’t do their homework before shooting from the lip;
3) Home team bias is universal, and merely more virulent among the British and the Australians.

Over the past few days, I noticed a couple of things that quite honestly got my goat.

Firstly, there is David Gower -- constantly condescending, and always critical of Ganguly and everything he does. This, allied to an eagerness to choose every opportunity to deify Hussain at the expense of his Indian counterpart.

I like Hussain as a captain, he is gritty and a great fighter -- but against that, he is a whiner, and an amazing hypocrite. Examples abound -- but unfortunately, the media seems to have a chronic case of selective amnesia.

Gower, for instance, was singing hosannas for Hussain’s inspirational leadership. Would this be the same Hussain who, for example, gave his own number eleven a public earful for getting out before Hussain had completed his century, in a game? Very inspirational that, no?

I was also shocked to see Sanjay Manjrekar, the co-commentator, lapping it all up and taking a few swings of his own at Ganguly while he was about it. Though, at the least, Manjrekar was a touch more constructive in his criticism.

Worse, there was Ravi Shastri’s swipe at Ganguly for being given a drink by Sarandeep Singh during the Kolkatta ODI. The Indian number 12 held a bottle up while Ganguly drank through his helmet. Look around -- you will see this happen time and again, with various players. But that wouldn’t do for Shastri -- he had to make it look like Ganguly was the maharaja , demanding his subject's servitude. Maybe in jest -- but a poor joke in that case, and more so considering that it reinforced the Western stereotype of Ganguly as Lord Almighty.

After all this, the media complains that Ganguly does not give them the time of day. Has the media ever wondered why?

True, Ganguly needs to really work on many aspects of his slumping cricketing skills -- but that is no reason for the media to take personal criticism to such ridiculous extremes.

The other thing I noticed recently that got my dander up is the fuss about the umpiring in Kolkatta. Give us a break for heaven’s sake, umpires blunder everywhere.

The umpire at Kolkatta blundered -- but by focusing on that, the English team has very cleverly diverted attention from its own spineless collapse after Trescothick was given out.

True, the decision against Trescothick was horrid -- but was it any more horrid than, say, the performance of the illustrious David Shepherd last season, when he routinely goofed big time in every outing? Again, does anyone remember the number of errors made by the highly respected British umpires last summer -- the number of no balls not called, the number of dodgy decisions given? So much so that last June, Ray Julian commented about how umpires kept missing no balls despite him, as match referee, pointing this out to them!

I was forgetting, though, about the media’s amnesia. So here is the link to the story.

Some seven months ago, to cite another example, the Rev David Shepherd openly indicated that maybe his vision and/or hearing is not as good as he thinks. Seven months later, he remains the most respected British umpire, and the poster boy of the ICC panel.

What is even more perplexing is the lack of homework done by journos before stuffing their feet in their mouths. Which brings me to the second item that, over the last couple of days, got my goat.

Writing in The Telegraph of London, Simon Briggs came up with a piece that is shocking in its lack of respect for Indian umpires and its total disregard for facts.

He condemns the entire umpires’ list for the ongoing ODI series as a ‘B-List’, and says: “World cricket can expect a rapid improvement when the ICC panels are formed in April. From then on, every one-day international will feature at least one neutral umpire from the secondary panel of between 25 and 30 officials. For now, though, England are less than impressed at being given a completely different pairing of Indian unknowns for every match. Few countries have more than a handful of top-class umpires to call on, let alone 12 or 15.”

I agree, entirely, with the basic concept that international fixtures must be administered by the best umpires. What I disagree with is Briggs's bland assumption that this is a peculiarly Indian problem. And that England is sinned against, not sinning.

For the edification of Mr Briggs and those of his ilk who appear to have a blind spot the size of the moon, here is the list of umpires used in the Natwest Trophy ODI series last June, which featured England, Pakistan and Australia in a triangular series of nine games plus one final.

Check it out -- ten games, 19 umpires. And if you look at their experience as reflected in the number of games they have officiated in, and see that in context of his statement about “Indian unknowns”, you wonder where Briggs is coming from on this one. Here is the list:

Umpire	Tests	ODIs
B. Duggleston	2	4
J.H. Hampshire	21	20
Alan Whitehead	5	14
P. Willey	24	23
R. Julian	0	6
D.J.Constant	36	6
N. Mallender	0	33
K.E. Palmer	22	2
T.E. Jesty	0	23
J.W. Holder	11	0
J.W. Lloyds	0	19
M.R. Benson	0	2
A.A. Jones	0	2
D.R. Shepherd	59	97
G. Sharp	14	31
Vanburn Holder	0	0
R. Palmer	2	8

Interesting -- the list (I am ignoring the Test experience, since we are talking of an ODI series here) has as many as four umpires who had yet to officiate at the highest level, plus another three who had stood in less than five games, plus three more who were yet to break into double figures. That is a total of 10 out of 19 umpires with no experience to boast of.

Unknowns, anyone -- especially Briggs?

And in passing, it needs noting that Umpire Alan Whitehead, who stood in that tournament, had been disciplined a year ago, in August 2000 as a matter of fact, for his "onfield behaviour" in a domestic game.

The policy of using different umpires for each game in a series is not something I personally agree with. Having said that, I would have thought that the media would make an honest assessment of the issue -- not merely focus on that aspect of it which suits their own individual prejudices.

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Mail Srikanth Nathella