soft?

Its amazing, the kind of things that capture the public imagination. Who would have thought some extremely dull sounding sweets for children would become the crux, the symbol and the persistent undercurrent of a Test match, and indeed a series? I mean, they were jelly beans for chrissake. They did not win one team the match nor lose it for the other. The irritated and upset one bowler, but they were not pivotal. And they were definitely not insulting. Heck, not even too much in bad taste- at least one can assume that considering how many the England players were consuming.
The evidence of this match makes it a bad blooded series? Come on! There’s been far worse, and far dirtier stuff. One sane voice I have read is, surprisingly, from Mr Bell.

And while Sreesanth has disgraced himself in more ways than one, a call to ban him on the evidence of the beamer is really a bit much. Athers can be quite insightful, but also sometimes a bit stuffy. In this case, I think- without putting too fine a point on it- you can really stuff it. How do you call for all bowlers to be banned after sending down beamers – “whether intentional or not” ? Whats with all the molly coddling players these days? They can hear anything remotely nasty, can take sweets lying on the pitch without getting upset, get shaken by a beamer? I admit it was one heck of a nasty delivery, but take a look at Viv Richards and Sunny Gavaskar playing the bowlers they did with a cap on, and taker a moment to go on about this.

ps- its been 3.5 months here. sheesh.