Some of the cricket this summer in Australia has been riveting. Yet I would be very happy if the series is forgotten, put in a leaky time capsule and buried deep somewhere. It has spewed venom, anger, even hatred. Cricket was meant to be a bridge between nations, lead to an understanding of countries and cultures. Instead it is emerging as a divisive force, driving wedges between two sets of people who have a common love for sport. Do we need hatred to sell sport? Do we have to swear at each other to survive? If dividing simple people who love sport is the path we are driving on, if hatred is the result of following the sport that is religion to us, then let us stop playing. Let us put a one year moratorium on cricket till everyone grows up.

Two statements have left me pained and made me relook at the reason I follow this sport around like a pilgrim would. Matthew Hayden has called Harbhajan Singh an ‘obnoxious weed’ and Mahendra Singh Dhoni has said, about sledging, that “youngsters need to learn all these things...it is an ‘art’.” Neither statement does the game credit and it is particularly sad that those involved are people I admire.

Hayden would be in the shortlist of people I would like to invite home. I have found him pleasant and polite though I am told his rivals on the field have a different image. But he has now called a competitor, and a colleague in a larger world, an obnoxious weed. You cannot say that because it is disrespectful and because it tells others that it is okay to say so. Increasingly a contest is bringing out the Voldermort in people when cricket desperately needs a Dumbledore.

... contd.