Yes, The Wall has chinks but he’ll keep standing

The world and his brother have been trotted out as character witnesses — one can only hope Dravid himself has had no hand in this — in an effort to put a positive spin to the sorry episode. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of spin even Aussie tailenders would handle with ease.

Given that the ICC rules do not account for ‘intent’, match referee Clive Lloyd did what he is paid to do. He saw the offending incident — Dravid spitting out a yellow lozenge, then rubbing it over a dirty-white cricket ball. No confusion, no doubts over that: it was a breach of Law 42.3. Having spat the lozenge on the ball, all Dravid had to do — like Tendulkar before him — was hand the ball over to the umpire. There is an opinion — shared by, among others, readers of this paper — that Dravid has been victimised by the Australian media. Though admittedly a good distance away from the scene of action, this writer has not seen anything on the web editions of the various Australian papers that suggests bias. Indeed, there has not been a single opinion piece — at least not one posted on the web — that has criticised a player the Australians have come to greatly admire.

Which leaves one to speculate on the reaction had, say, Shoaib Akhtar committed a similar offence. ‘Cheat’ would have been the mildest of epithets used. It’s a reflection of just how much goodwill the Indians have built on this tour that the harshest comments merely call a spade a spade.

Tony Greig, for one, said Dravid and Ganguly — standing alongside — should have known the consequences of their action. Greig had been similarly critical during the incident involving Sachin Tendulkar at Port Elizabeth.

Not that there hasn’t been scope to rubbish Dravid’s reputation. If his many supporters point to his record as grounds for his total exoneration, the circumstances surrounding Tuesday’s incident could suggest something more sinister. It was, after all, a period when the ball was old; the sky was overcast, Ganguly was in action and Irfan Pathan brought on soon after. In other words, it was swingtime. And Dravid is India’s vice-captain.

Which leaves me to point out one fact that might pain the batsman’s many fans. Rahul Dravid is a professional cricketer. He plays by the rules of the game but, just like his peers and teammates, is aware of how they can be manipulated, how far they can be pushed. Peter Roebuck has written in The Sydney Morning Herald of how mints are the new vaseline, and how rampant the practice is; Dravid isn’t the first nor will be the last to tamper with the ball.

The issue, though, is not his intention. He broke the law. He was punished. Hopefully, he’ll move on.

And, hopefully, so will we all. The Wall has his chinks but he’s still The Wall.