Australian umpire Daryl Harper has torn into the Indian captain MS Dhoni, saying that both he, and the Indian team was ill-behaved. According to the umpire, the Indian captain had refused to restrain his players from behaving badly and that meant that he had to intervene many a times.

Harper said that the ICC should have fined Dhoni for the manner in which he criticised the umpires at the end of the game.

This is a surprise alright, given that if a batsman gives out a reaction after having being adjudged out, he is often fined. However, as a captain, if you speak against the umpire in the press conference, it is a surprise that the ICC has not taken any action against Dhoni!

Harper also said that the Indian captain told Harper that the Indians had had many issues with Harper, in an intimidating manner. This was in response to Praveen Kumar being chucked out of the attack for his stepping on to the danger area offence.

India will begin their tour of England with a tour game against Somerset and that will be followed by the much-awaited, four-Test match series.
Here are a few reasons why England will win the series:

Batting Line-up: All these years, the way that England won games against India was to test them against their bowling in home conditions. This time around, their batting is equally strong, with likes of Alastair Cook and Jonathon Trott in the form of their life. With Ian Bell also coming into the equation, it is hardly a surprise that they will be a handful

Bowling form: James Anderson, Chris Tremlett and Graeme Swann are three totally different bowlers and in superb form. Anderson can get the ball to swing around, Tremlett gets a lot of bounce and Swann is the best spinner in the world today. Will the Indians be prepared enough?

Foreign Land: Despite India’s performances in recent times, it is known that they struggle on tracks which afford a lot to the bowlers. It will be no different in England as they will look to make pitches which will allow bowlers to get a lot of help. Can the Indians fight on them?

Shahid Afridi is an impulsive cricketer and there is no doubt about that. it can be gauged from the manner in which he would refer to the DRS when he had bowled and thought that he had a chance of a wicket but he was invariably proved wrong.

Now, it is another issue, far greater than using the referrals in the World Cup. His chairman of the PCB, Ejaz Butt has criticised the former captain by saying that Afridi would never be the captain of the Pakistan team again – something that was ridiculously wrong for a board chairman to decide.

Afridi has not shut his trap. Instead of saying that he does not want to make a comment or not even agreeing to field such questions, Afridi has said that he will reply to Butt when the time is appropriate.
Afridi also said that he was sad and disappointed and added that after all, it was Butt who had made him the captain! Some things never change in Pakistan cricket.

India had a golden chance of winning their series against West Indies 2-0. Instead, they went down in a heap for reasons unknown and were held to a draw against the west Indies. In the end, they won the series 1-0.

It is shocking to see that the number one team in the world went about their business chasing a total of 180 in 47 overs like they had decided that they couldn’t win it. To top it all, the coach Duncan Fletcher said that the pitch was slow and they couldn’t go after the total.

Did they really think that they would collapse to a score, getting all out and losing the game in the process? If they did, then there cannot be any doubt about the fact that they were a scared team and a scared team cannot be a number one side for a long time.

What the Indians needed to do was to give out a statement to the waiting England side. However, they had failed to do that.

Daryl Harper may have been sidelined by the Indians but that has meant that he has taken his frustration out by accusing the Indians of being rude.

What had happened was that the Indians had received a raw deal from the umpiring decisions in the first Test. This had led the Indian captain MS Dhoni to comment in the press conference that the umpiring could have been better and had that happened, the side would have been home much earlier.

This led to a lot of criticism of Harper and he had withdrawn from the final Test.

However, in an interview, he has said that the Indian team was ill-behaved and even the West Indians had complained to him about it. He added that his relation with Dhoni wasn’t the best.

Harper also suggested that he had made 94% of the decisions correctly and that was an above average figure. He defended himself by saying that he had made only two mistakes in the game which the Indians had complained of.

Harper was the umpire who had given Sachin Tendulkar out lbw when the ball had hit his shoulder in a Test match.

It has been reported that MS Dhoni has been fined by the ICC for maintaining a very slow over-rate in the second Test match against West Indies. He is fined 60% of his match fee.

On the whole, it does not look too bad. 60% of the fee is hardly a huge amount, but the problem lies elsewhere. The issue is that the Dhoni has now repeated this mistake twice in the space of six months. The ICC rules say that if he repeats it once again, the side will be left captainless – Dhoni will be banned for one game.

India play one Test against West Indies now and follow it up with a Test series against England and then have one against Australia. This will mean that the Indians will be against two crucial rivals in the next six months or so and without Dhoni, things could get woefully wrong!

Dhoni better be careful or face the match-referee’s wrath!