It's not racism; plain and simple bullying!

Ever since the Denness episode exploded on the international cricket world, I have received numerous emails from friends, colleagues and cousins -- passionate cricket lovers all, and to a man and woman, reasonable people. They are unanimous in their conclusion: that Denness's decisions are extremely harsh and unfair; and that it smacks of racism.

While I agree in part with the first of their contentions, what worries me is the second bit of reasoning. This line of thinking is both naive and dangerous. It is perhaps as naive as the 'foreign hand' bogey raised by our political leaders.

To view every unfair decision we receive through the prism of race is missing the entire point. The problem is we, as a people, are just not aggressive enough. To the world, we are pushovers. Punish us, fairly or unfairly, and we will probably make a little noise and then forget all about it and get on with our lives.

What did we do when Sourav Ganguly was punished for so much as showing his bat when an umpire ruled him out LBW? What did we do when Venkatesh Prasad was punished for showing his happiness after he had claimed a wicket? What did Sachin Tendulkar do, as Prem Panicker rightly pointed out, immediately after Nantie Hayward had abused him? What did we do when Alan Donald got away with abusing Rahul Dravid? What did we do when Pat Symcox accused Indians of fixing a match, based on nothing more than dressing room water-cooler gossip? What did we do when Michael Slater and Glenn McGrath gave Indian players more than a mouthful?

Nothing.

Neither the BCCI, nor the players, nor the millions of cricket lovers were outraged enough by these incidents.

So is it then a surprise that we are being pushed around. According to me, gentlemen, this is not racism. It's plain and simple bullying. And if you allow yourself to be bullied long enough, everybody begins to take you for granted.

Yes, we have our limits. Those were breached by Mike Denness. And, then, what do we do? We blame it on the colour of our skins.

Let me digress a bit. When Mutaiah Muralitharan was called for chucking by Darrell Hair, what did the Sri Lankan board do? They backed their player to the hilt. They continued playing him in the side. Then they demanded, and succeeded, in having Darrell Hair replaced as the umpire in matches which Sri Lanka played. Did they send him for correcting his action? No. They produced medical evidence to prove that Muralitharan's action was not illegal.

When Shoaib Akhtar was called for chucking, what happened? The ICC called his action illegal and banned him. But in a surprising volte face, the ICC said he could play the one-day matches since bouncers were not allowed (that's the stupidest excuse I have heard). Why? Obviously the PCB turned the heat on the ICC and got the decision revoked.

What did India do when Harbhajan Singh was accused of chucking? We dropped him tamely and promptly sent him for a course in correcting his action to Fred Titmus. Wasn't that an admission of guilt? Couldn't we have had his action examined by our own experts (EAS Prasanna comes to mind) first? If indeed his action was illegal, couldn't we have got the likes of Prasanna to talk to the young man? If it was not, shouldn't we have persisted with him, and challenged any call of chucking? By the by, what did we do when Pat Symcox, during the first test, hinted, by saying he would like to see Harbhajan Singh bowl without his full sleeves, that not all was kosher with the offie? Nothing. But when David Lloyd, in 1998, hinted at Muralitharan's odd action, the Sri Lankan board immediately swung into action, and received assurances from the English cricket board.

I could go on and on about the instances where we have taken things lying down. But the issue now is, racism or not, what can we do about the whole unsavoury episode?

For once, our cricket board has shown some spine. Whatever the outcome, this is a good beginning.

And it augurs well for Indian cricket.

However, I have one point of disagreement with the board. We shouldn't have demanded a revoking of Denness's decision, since the playing conditions are very clear about there being no scope for an appeal against a match refree's decision. But I am sure there are no conditions about adding a few penalties to ones already handed out.

What we should have insisted on is parity. We should have demanded that Shaun Pollock be banned for a match for excessive appealing, and, futher, be handed out another suspended ban for not controlling his players. We should have demanded a ban on Jacques Kallis, Lance Klusener and Nantie Hayward. I doubt whether the ICC could have hidden behind the law and playing conditions on that one.

From now on, the BCCI, the team management and the players have to be on constant vigil, as Prem once again rightly pointed out, and report any abuse or sledging to the authorities. And the authorities need to act on it decisively.

Show some guts, for god's sake. And forget about the colour of your skin. If you are strong enough inside, nobody can push you around!

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Mail Ashok Hegde