Sreesanth, Harbhajan and the biggest hit of them all!

By John Cheeran
There are many who believe that Kerala's and India's fast bowler S Sreesanth got his just deserts at the hands of that obnoxious weed, Harbhajan Singh after a fractious encounter in the IPL at Mohali.
I do not support such pernicious line of thinking. Sreesanth was hit, and the only thing that upset me was that he did not show his other cheek. Instead, he began to weep. A sorry state of affairs, for the macho image of a Malayali.
As it has been significantly observed by Farooq Engineer, former Indian wicketkeeper and the match referee in this episode, Harbhajan manhandled Sreesanth without any provocation. Whatever the magnitude of the provocations been, Harbhajan should have refrained from manhandling his India team mate. Harbhajan has proved through a series of incidents that it is not just his bowling action that's suspect but his actions off the ball too.
The saving grace for Sreesanth was that the whole thing happened in front of 25 live cameras and Harbhajan's stupidity could not be covered up by the gangsters in the dressing room. Often, Indian team's dressing rooms were silent witnesses to such truant behaviour by the senior pros. And all such incidents used to be glossed over with the argument in a family all sorts of things do happen.
Not just that. Indian cricket had witnessed ugly spats on the ground between Maninder Singh and Manoj Prabhakar. And in a Duleep Trophy match I can recall when Rashid Patel chased Raman Lamba with his bat to hit.
This time around, The IPL and the BCCI top brass were under pressure to ban Harbhajan. I however consider that the 11-match ban was too little to be an object lesson for others. For his crimes, not just against Sreesanth, but against cricket, Harbhajan should be banned from all forms of game till his last day.