The hearing ended with a favourable verdict after the off-spinner’s defence was based on a “mishearing” of the word “monkey.” A few days later, Matthew Hayden called him an “obnoxious little weed” on a radio show. With opinion stacked firmly against Hayden for the unprovoked attack, the BCCI decided not to step in, only saying that they hoped Cricket Australia would take appropriate action.

Earlier, after a particularly heated one-dayer in Cochin in 2007, when both Sreesanth and Harbhajan got involved in arguments with the Australian players, match-referee Chris Broad said that no one “would like to see a sterile game, but clearly there is a line. Whether that line was crossed or not we will decide later.”

Adam Gilchrist wasn’t impressed either. “I saw some really hard-fought cricket and there were comments between different players and that happens,” he said. “I also saw some things that I would not expect from my son Harrison in a backyard game of cricket, but we’ll move on.”

In 2006, in a Test match in Johannesburg, Sreesanth got a mouthful after being beaten by South African bowler Andre Nel. He smashed the next delivery for six before running down the wicket and breaking into a series of pelvic thrusts. During the 2007 Trent Bridge Test match, he was fined half his match fees for a shoulder-barge on English captain Michael Vaughan. “Sreesanth is seen as one of a new breed of Indian cricketers, empowered by self-confidence and style,” The Independent wrote then.

... contd.