Should India call off the Australia tour?

Public opinion, fuelled by overwhelming anger at the events of the second Test in Sydney, during which on field umpires Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor handed out decisions that blurred the distinction between human error and downright malice, suggests that the team should return.

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India is, typically, ambivalent; it speaks, as it so often tends to do, in tongues, not all of them intelligible.

In one breath, it suggests that the honor of the players, the team and of India itself will not be compromised.

Fighting words, but what do they amount to? If the BCCI feels the honor of the team has been impugned, its course should be clear - pull out, even if it means paying $2.3 million Australian by way of damages.

Elsewhere, however, other BCCI functionaries use the word 'suspend'; they suggest that pending the disposal of the appeal against Harbhajan Singh's suspension, the team will stay put in Sydney, postponing plans to travel to Canberra for a scheduled practice match ahead of the third Test at Perth, January 16-20.

That move is short-sighted, in more ways than one.

First, consider practicalities. While you can make the case that India - deprived of the services of pace bowling spearhead Zaheer Khan, and led by an RP Singh still on the comeback trail after recent injury and a raw, untried rookie in Ishant Sharma - did brilliantly to push Australia to the ropes; that only a succession of umpiring decisions prevented Australia from collapsing in the first innings (when top scorer Andrew Symonds was reprieved thrice); that even on the last day, when Australia won with just two balls to spare, only two diabolical decisions against Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly, when both senior batsmen were looking comfortable in the middle, triggered the collapse.

None of that is debatable; yet the fact remains that this team, which was sent to Australia late, with not enough time to acclimatize, needs practice ahead of the key third and fourth Tests.

Skipper Anil Kumble is on record as saying that he is aware of problems with the batting lineup, and wants to use the practice game to test alternative options ahead of the third Test.

For this reason alone, the BCCI needs to jump off the fence it is perched on; it needs to decide whether the tour will go on, and inform the players accordingly, instead of leaving the team in a state of suspended animation and depriving them of valuable practice time.

The BCCI, of course, will do none of this. While it plays into the public mood with fighting words about national honor, it is no secret that money is its sole engine. Not only does the board not want to shell out large sums of money by way of damages, it does not want to antagonize the influential Australian cricket board, especially at a time when Pawar is poised to take over as president of the ICC, and India is scheduled to host the next World Cup.

The situation remains fluid, and much behind-the-scenes activity indicates that a compromise solution of some sort is being worked out between the top honchos of cricket in India and Australia. An indication of what that solution could be will come tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, when board officials hold a press conference to formally announce their intentions.