The fact that Australian side under Ponting is not well behaved is known to every body. Indians vividly remember one occassion when Ponting caught a bumb ball and verbally pounced ont he Umpire who did not give the batsman out. Even the aged and matured Mcgrath has on occassions behaved badly under Ponting. Australians call sledging as a legitimate psychological weapon. South African Nel is now the other aggressive person onthe field. Some how the Aussies appear to escape disciplinary action while ICC tries to punish a Sreesanth who reatcts to Nel or a Sehwag who makes a loud appeal. There is a double standard in the ICC when it comes to disciplining the players for sledging.

Coming to two incidents mentioned by some members about Gavaskar, it must be remembered that Gavaskar led Chauhan off the field not because he was once again given out erroneously, but because he heard Lillie making some rude comment when Gavaskar was returning to the pavillion.

Secondly, Gavaskar played left hand for some time in a Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka when he felt that the left arm spinner Raghuram BHat was unplayable because of the pitch conditions. It was a stroke of genius which saved the day for Mumbai.

I also remember the older generation Aussies from the Bill Lawrie era when in Bangalore, facing an imminent defeat against Prasanna and Chandrashekar and having been reduced to 42 for 7 against a regional side, Lawrie and Gleeson started wasting time and padding up to every thing (Those days the lbw rules were different) ad ultimately saw the session through.

Except Gilchrist, Aussies seem to be a bunch of cricketers who think they are aggressive when they insult others.

Even the reaction of Ponting is too harsh and unwarranted for an innocuous comment made by Gavaskar. It vindicates Gavaskar's views.

Naavi