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Friendship series, yeah, right...

Two Pepsi Friendship Tests, one Asian Championship Test, and the first Test match tour between Pakistan and India for ten years has come to an end. For an entire decade, the cricket-loving public in both countries has yearned for this contest, and until now, politics had prevented it from taking place. But now that it has, was it really the unqualified success that was so keenly anticipated?

The long-awaited battle between the much vaunted Indian middle order and the heralded Pakistan pace and spin attack turned out to be something of a damp squib. Neither side was on top of its game throughout the tour, and that would have been a disappointment to many. On the other hand, it did make for three of the best contests you could want to see, each of the Tests filled with the twists and turns which are unique to the longer version of the game.

In that sense then, the tour has proved a positive advertisement for Test match cricket. Three matches, all equitably contested, and each finding a winner at the end of the day. That, after all, is what the establishment wants in order to ensure the commercial viability of the game.

What stood out in particular was the wealth of notable individual achievement that was witnessed. In an entire career, a batsman plays one or two innings which are particularly special, a bowler bowls one or two exceptional spells, and a fielder may take a couple of absolute blinders (Jonty Rhodes excepted). Yet here, in three matches, we had plenty of everything.

First, there was Sachin Tendulkar's century in Chennai - one of the greatest Test match innings one could hope to see. It was played under phenomenal pressure, in a crisis situation, and he elevated his game to a new level in order to guide his team to the finish line. That he may have thrown it away at the end should not detract in any way from the enormity of his achievement. One must not forget Nayan Mongia, who too produced his finest display with the bat in this innings.

Before that could happen, there was Venkatesh Prasad, who confounded not only his critics, but his most ardent fans as well, with a stunning spell of 5 wickets without conceding a run, to bring India right back into a game which was all but over.

No discussion of this series will ever be complete of course, without mention of Anil Kumble. His ten wickets in an innings in Delhi will live forever in the memories of those who saw it - and we can be sure that there are at least 100,000 people who were at the stadium that afternoon! His was a feat which may never again be equalled - that it may not have been the best he has bowled is neither here nor there.

Saqlain Mushtaq too, wove his way into the minds of all who watched him practice his craft. He was a delight to behold, and his four consecutive five wicket hauls are ample testimony to the measure of control he had over members of the Indian line up.

Onwards to Calcutta, and we had those two deliveries from Shoaib Akhtar to dismiss Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. It was reminiscent of Waqar Younis in his younger days, only Shoaib is marginally quicker. As if that wasn't enough for the fans to take home, Saeed Anwar returned to the fore with a stylish unbeaten 188, his delectable late cuts off the off spinner Harbhajan Singh a particular treat to watch. Javagal Srinath then had the last word, with a stunning 6 wicket burst in the space of 10 overs, during which India again came right back into a match which had been lost.

All of that, and the positive reaction of crowds in the most part, and the fans on the streets and in the cities where the Pakistanis plied their trade, would seem to indicate that things have gone really well. Unfortunately, to walk away with that belief would be to fail to probe beneath the surface, and to ignore some all too blatant issues which arose throughout.

Where else to start, but the umpiring. There were a lot of poor decisions, and all three Test matches were affected. It is a shame that some of those decisions may have had significant, even decisive, impacts on the flow of a match. Careers can be made or broken on the back of umpiring decisions. However, that is not where the problem lies. Mistaken decisions are part and parcel of the game, and all umpires make them, even the best ones.

Arguably the three leading umpires on the world stage are Steve Bucknor, David Shepherd, and Srinivas Venkataraghavan. Of the three, it is only Shepherd who appears to rarely make a wrong decision, yet all are highly regarded. The reason for this lies largely in their manner of umpiring, and the level of control they have over the game. You will not see any of these gentlemen shouting and wagging their finger at a wicketkeeper in response to an excited appeal.

You will not see them asking a player drinking water, "What the f**k is going on?" You will not see them lie back and allow a bowler to question the sexual practices they engage in, using the choicest Punjabi. And that is where, for me, the likes of David Orchard, and AV Jayaprakash, let themselves down. Perhaps you cannot blame them, for they were thrust into intense pressure situations for which they would have had absolutely no prior experience - but then that is why it is imperative that a series of Tests such as this one has only the best on duty.

Having said that, to blame the umpires in any way for the manner in which the ironically named Friendship Series, and the Test which followed, were conducted, would be a gross travesty of justice. The blame for that falls squarely on the shoulders of the players themselves, for after all, it is their game.

I doubt there have been many, if any, Test series played in a worse on-field spirit than this one. That much was evident to those watching on television, and it is mind-numbing to consider that what the viewer sees is very much the tip of the iceberg. It is fashionable these days to suggest that it is the Australians and South Africans who 'sledge' the most - but what went on in Chennai, Delhi and Calcutta went a long way beyond mere sledging, it was downright disgusting. I am all for the game being played hard, and sledging is part and parcel of that, but surely there is room for some sense of decency to remain in the sport.

Fans and viewers were treated to consistent and guttural abuse of the umpires - sometimes apparently right to their faces. Even those who could not lip read Hindi or Urdu could see that the majority of exchanges between players were not about the well being of their families. Twice we had players claiming catches which they would clearly have known to have bounced first - in one case, the player involved appeared to contemplate for a moment before deciding to launch his appeal.

None of that, and there was more too, has any place in the game, not even the modern game, as it is often referred to. I doubt that I have never seen a series played in such abominable spirit on the field. India recently played Australia, the masters of playing the game hard, and there was nothing in that series which came close to what we have seen over the last month.

It is clearly possible to play the game hard, and yet to play it clean, and play it fair. Whether that is possible in an India-Pakistan encounter is apparently another question altogether. If this is the way it's going to be when the two sides play each other in the future, there have to be some questions asked, and answered, as to whether or not it's worth the effort. We've already seen how a crowd might react.