E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Although the verbiage is getting shriller and shriller, and should largely be ignored, the kind of words Mathew Hayden & Co are using, and getting away with, needs to be seen and studied in perspective.
This is where a little help from one of the greatest cricketers of the modern era, Sir Ian Terence Botham, will be useful to our team. As soon as the man who walked all over England to raise money for charity landed in Australia for the 1992 World Cup, Botham said: “I am happy to come here and want to know how my ancestors are doing in Australia!”
This led to wide condemnation of Botham, but why?
Google shows how right Botham was. If Harbhjan Singh is an ‘obnoxious little weed’ in Hayden’s estimation, historical documents show what Hayden and his countrymen and women have been down the ages. Australia was to England what Andamans was to India till 1947. Stealing sheep or wool or cloth in 18th- and 19th-century England could land you a minimum seven-year sentence at an Australian penal colony.
As the New Zealanders say, the only difference between us and the Aussies is, we chose to live to in New Zealand!
“The British government deemed transportation, as the practice was known, just punishment for a mixed bag of crimes from marrying secretly to burning clothes. Although “felony,” “larceny” and “burglary” described the overwhelming majority of crimes, a few records include juicy details, such as, “obtaining money by false pretences,” “stealing heifers” and “privately stealing in a shop.” The convict records typically contain convict’s name, date and place of sentencing, length of sentence—usually 7 years, 14 years or life—and, sometimes, the crime committed,” one document reads.
Such being the case, expecting civilized behaviour from the offspring of ‘burglars’, ‘heifer stealers’,’ felons’, etc is a little too demanding. If 165,000 convicts were sent to Australia betwen 1788 to 1868, if not all, at least most of them should know where they come from. At least 22 per cent of Australians are descended from exiles. Their sentences served, many convicts remained Down Under, becoming Australia’s first western settlers.
“By today’s standards, many of these crimes are minor misdemeanors or are no longer illegal, and the severity of punishments seem ludicrous,” said Megan Smolenyak, chief family historian for Ancestry.com. “No wonder Australians consider a convict in their family tree a badge of honor and seek to uncover the amusing, quirky and outrageous details in their family’s ‘criminal’ past.”
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ishant Sharma should call up Botham and get specific details. Sunny Gavaskar, Harsha Bhogle and Ravi Shastri could also help in this regard.
As for Andrew Symonds, the Indians should not get into any argument or fight, because ICC match referees will hold Indians guilty as a matter of rule. They should just casually ask him: “We know you did not come from England. But won’t your legs ache when you walk continuously?”
churumuri 
A heap of rubbish. Is it Churumuri that we are reading? Come on Churumuri, raise the bar a little higher and be sensible. Not expected from Churumuri. This is a trash. heap of rubbish.
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“expecting civilized behaviour from the offspring of ‘burglars’, ‘heifer stealers’,’ felons’, etc is a little too demanding.” What kind of perverted racist logic is that?
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indians have no right to comment on aussie sledging. indian corporates are paying crores together to aussie cricketers to play them in indian premier league.
hayden,symonds are hurling abuses at indians black and blue ,yet they are heroes here.
what was done to laloo when he racially abused kannadigas , he is still a cabinet minister.
INDIANS SHOULD SET ASIDE THESE DOUBLE STANDARDS.
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ERR you remind Hayden and Co their criminal ancestry for his trash talk. What about Harbajan’s Maa ki? By the way, there are more qualified kiwis in Sydney than in Auckland.
The odds most likely will be 40-47p. With 7 paisa spread, time to think how to make money.
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Right Dr. Ramesh. If wouldnt say Indians, at least those bloggers who use this incident as an opportunity to indulge in their own racist wet dreams.
Harbhajan called the Aussies players names. Hayden called Harbhajan an obnoxious weed. What has this to do with the ancestory of some Aussies etc.? If you do something wrong and others start questioning the actions of your ancestors in perpetuating some kind of bigotry inside your own country – what would you think?
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Not only is this post in poor taste but the logic used makes no sense as pointed out by others.
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Their criminal ancestry also explains why they are so good in competitive sport. Physical sport has replaced combat over the years and that’s where people channelize their combative instincts. No wonder the aussies are such good fighters.
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What do you say about the Indian crowd, who imitated like monkey when Symonds entered the ground??
Have you ever thought why Harbhajan (leave Sreesanth, he is cool guy now.) has the problem with Aussie?
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Earlier the English cricketers were in the forefront to demean Indian cricketers. Bishen Bedi’s incidence who noticed the applying of vaseline to the red cherry by English pacers has been a well known instance. Now it is the turn of Australia as England is very low in cricketing rating. The growth of cricket talent in the Sub- continent is not well digested by the so called masters of cricket. They denigrated Murali’s bowling methods. Ofcourse, his performance despite oddities has made his distractors to keep their mouth shut. He is also well suported by his teammates and the Board. Sadly, our Board and so called Indian commentators are enjoying the plight of our players on the field by the Aussies not with their cricket but by their bad mouth. The Board should cancel all the tour programmes immediately unless the Cricket Australia cleans up its basket. There should be blanket ban on sledging in all forms. On field umpires should be given powers to show the red card to erring players and send them back to the pavilion
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This blog about Aussies and Aussie ancestors is written in a very poor taste.
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E.R. RAMACHANDRAN – stop writing trash.
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Though I don’t use this word often, this piece of writing deserves to be called crap. The author seems to think that only he knows the history of Australia or he has just discovered it. What can you do if your father’s father’s father was a thief. It is preposterous to associate Aussie character based on history. Going by that logic, Ramachandran must be a racist and casteist given the history of upper class in India.
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How inconsiderate.
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