They have been failed by the BCCI. The players who bring the BCCI so much wealth and clout have been revealed to be on their own, unable to call in the support services every sportsperson representing his country should take for granted. The truth is, when Harbhajan was summoned for the hearing with the match referee, he was walking into a trial fraught with cultural misunderstandings. (In October, when the Australians first levelled charges of racism against spectators in Vadodara, we had in these columns pointed to the cultural disconnect.) Yet, the BCCI, which has on call the best legal assistance, chose to leave Harbhajan’s defence solely to his teammates, even as news came in that a lawyer was being flown in to assist the match referee.

If this is a crisis for Indian cricket, so it is for the Australians. They play hard, they talk rude, they fight for every run, every wicket — and we admired them for it. The Sydney Test was especially electrified by their determination to equal their own record of 16 consecutive Test wins. On the days after that achievement they are visibly constrained to be defensive about the way they won. Ricky Ponting and his men must wonder, did they pull out one stop too many? For a team known for unabashed rudeness, to hope to explain every appeal and protestation on the field as being born of integrity and politeness is, frankly, very rich.