Week 29 winner

Political correctness. I’ve had a fucking gutful of it. The whole world needs to take a teaspoon of concrete and harden the fuck up. We’ve got footballers squealing like stuck pigs because opponents are sledging their mums – for fucksake, the best way to respond is to get the fucking football, you bunch of fucking pussies. Imagine what would happen if Micky Martyn called Gary Ablett Sr’s mum a filthy strumpet – Gary wouldn’t have squealed, he would have sat on Micky’s head a few times and kicked 12 goals in response. Then we’ve got animal activists complaining that some sheep died on a broken down ship at Outer Harbour – a ship that was taking these sheep overseas to be, wait for it, killed. If someone can explain to me how to get a roast lamb or a nice char-grilled t-bone steak on my plate without killing the animal, I’m all fucking ears. Do these animal activists give a shit about more important things, like kids living on the fucking street or being abused by kiddy-fiddling priests? Nah, of course not, fucking tree-hugging hippy bastards, that would require them to step into the real world for a few moments.

Which brings us to the winner of this week’s Chad. It was not necessarily a unanimous decision – there was strong support for Crows supporters, 20/20 cricket and Channel 10 to win but in the end I had no choice but to award the medal to Indian cricket fans for calling me a “scoundrel” and a “blatant racist”. It was absolute fucking gold to get such a reaction to a diatribe I delivered not on Indian cricket, but ironically on Pakistan cricket. It got me thinking about what sort of reaction I met get from these currymunching fuckwits if I turned the blowtorch onto Indian cricket. So here goes…

India is solely responsible for turning the once great and noble game of cricket into a complete and utter farce, run by corrupt and inept arseholes more intent on lining their own pockets than protecting the integrity of the game. Cricket is now run by Indian betting syndicates via the Indian-run ICC. Test cricket is being allowed to wither like a shrivelled-up grape on a dying vine while billions of dollars are poured into the fucking steaming pile of crap that is 20/20 cricket. And yet Indian cricket fans call me a scoundrel and a racist. Well, my Indian cricket fans, you are the fucking scoundrels and racists and I’ll now provide you with a raft of irrefutable evidence in support.

Let’s start with “scoundrel”. By definition, a scoundrel is an unscrupulous person and unscrupulous means completely oblivious or contemptuous to what is right or honourable. My Indian friends, this perfectly describes Indian cricket over the past couple of decades. Here are some examples.

In 2000, Mohammed Azharuddin, the former Indian cricket captain was banned for life by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for his involvement in match-fixing. Azharuddin was responsible for introducing the dodgy Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta to Hansie Cronje, the late South African captain and a-grade cheating cunt, who was also banned for life. And as part of the same investigation, three other Indian players and a team official were also implicated. Ajay “Snake” Sharma was banned for life while Ajay Jadeja, Dr. Ali Irani, the team physiotherapist, and, ironically, Manoj Prabhakar, who started the scandal when he accused others of match fixing, all received five-year bans for their involvement with bookmakers. Fucking dirty cheats - the pricks under-performed for large sums of money supplied by Indian bookies. It is a pity that Cameron White can’t use that same excuse for his long-term under-performance. It is pretty bloody ironic that Prabhakar now heads up Naturence Cosmetics – the cunt sure knows a shitload about covering up. And to prove that corrupt behaviour is accepted in India, Azharuddin is now a Member of Parliament in India. Yep, the people of India, despite his blatant and proven dishonesty, voted him in to represent them. What do you say about that, Indian cricket fans???

The report into Azharuddin’s crooked dealings by the CBI, India’s equivalent of the FBI, also implicated the BCCI. The report said that while there was no evidence that any officials were involved in match fixing, such a widespread racket was not possible without their knowledge. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is most likely a fucking cheating cunt.

During the test between India and South Africa in November 2001, match referee Mike Denness found six India players guilty of various offences and banned them all for one test match. The players were:
o Sachin Tendulkar (ball tampering charges, including his own)
o Virender Sehwag (excessive appealing)
o Sourav Ganguly (inability to control his team player's behaviour and no doubt for being a prick)
o Harbhajan Singh (excessive appealing)
o Shiv Sundar Das (excessive appealing)
o Deep Dasgupta (excessive appealing)

Indian cricket fans took the streets burning effigies of Denness in protest – real classy. And true to form, the BCCI, rather than doing the honourable thing and disciplining the players, threatened instead to cut short the series if the ICC didn’t replace Denness as match referee, they refused, but the fucking South African Cricket Board bent over and obliged. Did any money exchange hands? Who can say, but it smells fucking fishy. If it walks like a duck…

India was also the stage for one of the most dreary Test matches of all-time, between India and England, a match in which everyone watching the game would have gladly chipped in some coin to bribe the players to end the match. The setting was in Bangalore in December 1981. India had gone 1-0 up in the series in the Bombay opener and was in no mood to throw away the advantage (most probably because they hadn’t been offered any cash to throw the game). England batted first and scored 400, with walking cure for insomnia, Chris Tavaré taking three hours to score 22. Then, when India batted, Sunil Gavaskar spent nearly 12 hours making 172 and put an end to any hope of a result in the match. So, all in all, the crowd were treated to a thoroughly mind-numbing match. Gavaskar, the arrogant cunt, also had a unapologetic history of monotony. His painful 36 not out off 174 balls in the first match of the first World Cup is surely one of the dullest batting spectacles of all time. England had thrashed four for 334 from their 60 overs with an assured Dennis Amiss century and a sparkling 51 not out by Chris Old off just 30 balls. Then, Gavaskar came in and batted, nay, bored for India. I spoke with Tony Greig about the match, “The stupid little prick. I told him after our innings that India could get a draw out of the game as long as they were not all out. Would you fucking believe the little curry-muncher believed me. Hahaha. His innings was about as exciting as watching Bill Lawry tend to his fucking pigeons.” India still had seven wickets in hand when the final, merciful ball was bowled at Lord's that June day in 1975, but they ended up a staggering 202 runs short.

Gavaskar and his mate, Ravi Shastri, have gone on to form the most biased commentary team in history. Gavaskar and Shastri have an unashamed conflict of interest in their dual roles as officials of the BCCI and contracted commentators. The pair get paid a huge some of money by the board that forces the pair to toe BCCI's line, ie to be biased. Indian cricket fans, do you think being paid to be bias is unscrupulous? I’ll answer that on your behalf – fucking oath it is. The whole situation erupted after a verbal spat between Shastri and former England skipper Nasser Hussain in their commentary stint during the second Test between England and India at Nottingham. Shastri strongly reacted to Hussain's comments about BCCI's stand on the Decision Review System (DRS), telling the Englishman that he has no right to speak on issues related to the BCCI. Well, Shastri, I think Hussein, even though he is a total fuckwit, has every right to question why the BCCI is dead against the introduction of the DRS – why would that be, I wonder? Would it be because it might cut out some potential match-fixing? Shastri and Gavaskar are now being accused of 'conflict of interest' and bias towards the BCCI while commentating since they are being paid by the Indian board. "There is no business for such people to be in the commentary box. But the scenario is hardly surprising, considering the BCCI works like a banana republic for which conflict of interest has never been an issue; in fact, it actively creates them," renowned media commentator Santosh Desai was quoted as saying to a leading Indian daily. "I see this as a larger nexus between the Board, the commentators and the TV broadcasters. The onus has to be on individuals, especially if they are iconic sportsmen, to set an example and not become part of this co-option for personal gain," Desai added. Gavaskar's former teammate Bishan Singh Bedi was also critical about BCCI's approach and termed it as 'unethical' to hire mouthpieces. "We are not surprised. Anyone familiar with this board knows there is no question of ethics with them. There is conflict of interest everywhere. There is brazen disregard for norms. It's run like a fiefdom and no opposition is tolerated." Ex-India spinner Maninder Singh, however, said Gavaskar and Shastri are victims of deep-rooted corruption in the country and cricket is not immune to the menace. "It's symptomatic of what the nation is going through. There are scams, corruption in every sphere of life and cricket is not immune. Any ex-player given that kind of money will succumb to temptation. It is the board's fault," said Maninder. "If the board was seriously interested in improving the game, such ex-players with deep knowledge of the game should have been paid to be on a cricket affairs committee to streamline scheduling or player fatigue or other niggling issues. Why commentary?" he added. Of course Gavaskar and Shastri denied the allegations as they drove off in their BCCI Bentleys.

So corruption in Indian cricket continues unabated. Take the insidious Indian Premier League (IPL), for example. This stain of a league has been continuously tainted with rumours of players throwing games or agreeing to commit a flagrant error in exchange for cash. And in the process, the IPL is destroying cricket. Once results of games are questioned, then the game is fucked. And then you have undeserving cunts like Shaun “Princess” Tait getting paid big bucks to bowl four fucking overs of tripe. It is a fucking embarrassment and dishonour to the champions of the past like Richie Benaud and Clive Lloyd. But I’m sure Greg Dyer would have fitted in perfectly. The competition is crooked. You want proof? Ok, here are a few examples. A high-profile minister in India, Shashi Tharoor, was forced to resign after a cricket official disclosed that his girlfriend was given a £10 million stake in an Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket team. And then there are the player payments - last year an investigation found that 33 foreign cricket players were paid illegally to play for IPL teams and that a money-laundering scheme was involved to avoid the payment of taxes. Fucking bloody shonky. And Sharad Pawar, a former president of the BCCI and a key political ally of the ruling Congress party, was then accused of improperly using his office to influence bids for IPL contracts. A second minister was accused of diverting a passenger plane from the national carrier Air India for use by IPL players. For fucksake, we could have given them Tiger Airways, if they were that fucking desperate. The whole situation is rancid and is exactly why cricket is fucked. How can cricket survive when India rules the ICC??

While scoundrels abound in Indian cricket, they also run rampant elsewhere in India. Take the recent Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. The event was marred by reports of corruption in the planning of those games, poor management of the construction of new arenas (eg falling down bridges, a collapsing stadium roof), and an athletes’ village in which rooms were soiled by human waste (ie covered in piss and shit). And the Indian weightlifting team was caught in a doping scandal, with the weak bastards busted for taking steroids. And later, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose, two of India’s leading 400 metre runners and part of last year’s Commonwealth Games gold-medal winning relay team, were also suspended for taking steroids. Does the corruption in India ever end? The answer is fucking no. India has recently been rocked by a telecommunications scandal over the allocation of mobile phone licenses, as a government auditor concluded that the government might have lost about $40 billion in fees because officials gave licenses to favoured bidders at bargain prices. The Indian CBI filed charges against a former communications minister, his aides and several high-profile business executives in that case. They were accused of cheating, forgery and corruption. Sounds fucking familiar, doesn’t it?

I think I have more than adequately covered “scoundrels” so I’ll now move on to racism. Talk about deadset fucking hypocrisy. You could fill the British Library with stories on racism in India – it is one of the most racist nations on earth. Their entire caste system is based on race and heredity. Certain people have rights and others don’t. The haves and the have nots. Might partially explain why there is such a huge fucking gap between the rich and the poor in India. Foreigners are considered to be casteless and therefore outcasts. Ask any African what it is like to be in India. Take for example, Diepiriye Kuku, an African living in India - upon entering a bank one day Kuku was startled by a voice over the loudspeaker, droning, “An African has come.” A real nice welcome. Later, when Shaun Tait walked in, the same droning voice announced, “A heartless, dis-loyal, money-grabbing cunt has come”. And what about when Harbhajan Singh in Sydney and then a crowd of 100,000 in India called Andrew Symonds a "monkey" - I suppose that wasn't racist?

So Indian cricket fans, before you start pointing the finger, take a look in the fucking mirror – you are the fucking scoundrels and blatant racists. And while you are looking in the mirror, take a close look at that Chad Medal around your neck that that you have just won, it fits perfectly, doesn’t it – wear it proudly fuckwits. To close, I’d just like to say, if any of you cockheads disagree with my comments – stiff fucking shit, you can go and fuck ya selves.