To fault Harbajan for calling only Symonds as monkey is understandable. He should have called the whole cricket team as a team of monkeys. I am sure after this Test match any self-respecting Monkey would take offense at its being compared to an Australian cricketer.

In the rhetoric of absurds, Ponting looked like a bully turned into a cry-baby at the first sign of resistance. He clearly grounded the catch that he claims upon his integrity as "taken". The way he convinced the umpire that Ganguly was out was an incredible scene in itself. The list of Australian sledging, misdemeanor and misbehavior runs long, and foul way has become a habit. In this game, it reached it heights on day one itself, and as the game progressed the extent of malice became enormous. There is televised evidence of how he lied, lied, lied and cheated to win. And yet after all this, his claiming integrity is like a woman with half a dozen babies calling herself a virgin.

Clarke did not budge after a neat edge was cleanly taken. It was as if the match was fixed and the umpires and the third umpire were bought out by the Australians. Yet the way Australians celebrated after the match and all the comments made by their teammates seemed to come from Pirates who had just robbed the ship, raped all the women and were dancing around the loot. There is only one way to deal with buccaneers, and that is to hang them (at least figuratively). I always had scant regard for Ponting as a person, and now I think he will go down in history as a disgrace. So will this test match. The very fact that Symonds was the Man of the Match tells you that it was all Monkey Business. Close