Bad Umpiring Decisions Caused India to lose this Test Matc

There seems to be a consensus that Australian only won this test because of bad umpiring decisions and that the Australian cricket team (or ACB) are at fault for this.  The first thing to remember is that the ICC appoint independent umpires for all tests.  Yes the bad decisions did favour Australia in this test (6 – 1 by my count), but that is not the fault of the Australian team.  These bad decisions stopped India from winning but didn’t cause them to lose the test – they have to accept responsibility for that themselves.  No one seems to be looking at the Indians preparation and tactics leading into this game:

-   The SCG test was the 5th hard test match the Indians have had in a row, remember that had 3 tests against Pakistan immediately before this series.  They came to Australia on a short break with only one minor warm up game (which got washed out) before two back to back tests.  Does this sound like the way to prepare to play the best test team in the world on pitches that are foreign to you?

-   India went into the SCG test match with an unbalanced batting line up (only one specialist opener) and two of their specialist batsmen failed miserably in both innings (Singh and the opener).  Few teams can carry two non-performing specialist batsmen and still win.

-   What about India’s tactics in Australia’s second innings that allowed Australia to score 400 on a crumbling pitch and put the game out of reach?  Their bowling tactics on the morning of day 5 were particularly woeful -  India had an 8-1 field (8 fielders on the offside and only 1 on the onside) and asked their two most inexperienced bowlers to take on Hussey and Symonds (probably the two best batsmen in the world when it comes to one day type situations and taking on fielders).  This was at a time when India were still a realistic chance of winning the match but instead they ran up the white flag and started playing for the draw.

-   What about India’s fielding, the dropped catches (e.g. Hussey on day 5) and the general lack of urgency that allowed Australia to turn 2’s into 3s etc and get a lot of cheap runs.

India lost this match because of themselves, but I do agree the umpiring decisions made it very hard for them to win this game.

As for the comments about the umpiring always favouring Australia when playing at home, what rubbish.  I repeat, the umpires are from independent cricketing nations.  Someone even implied that we only won last years Ashes series (which we won 5 nil!) due to favourable umpiring from independent umpires.

The Australians are Hypocrites for Reporting H Singh for Racial Abuse

Like it or not, people need to understand that the match referee (a South African) specifically told both captains that they were required to report all instances of racial abuse during this test match regardless of whether it occurred on the field or off it (i.e. whether it from a player or a spectator).  Ponting was simply following clear and unequivocal instructions. 
Even independent observers (such as Tony Grieg) have realised this now.  Australia have a bad reputation in this area (probably well deserved too), after all an Australian was the first player to be suspended in international cricket for racial abuse (Lehman in 2003).
On the flip side, the Australians have reportedly been working hard to address this area since 2003.  Racial abuse is ugly from everyones perspective, but the ICC has a process and the process has been followed in this instance.  The Indians are welcome to appeal the decision, but if they don’t like the process or the definition of racial abuse they should take this up with the ICC.

The Australian’s (lead by Ricky Ponting) are Arrogant and Bad Sports

The latest incarnation of this seems to be based on:
-   the fact that M Clark didn’t walk straight away when he got a golden duck in the second innings
-   that the Aussies appealed when Dravid didn’t hit the ball in the second innings
-   they way the Australians celebrated when the last Indian was given out

Now I don’t know why Clarke didn’t walk but it was only one incident in the game.  As for appealing when a batsmen was not out, didn’t anyone count the number of unsuccessful Indian appeals which were proved to be incorrect on replay?  It’s pretty silly to accuse us of being bad sports for this when you think about it.  Similarly its silly to criticise the Australians for celebrating wildly when winning a key test match at the death against a strong opponent.

For some balance, lets look at two other situations from the same game, both involving our captain both of which could have potentially had a significant outcome on the game:

-   India first innings – Ricky Ponting does not claim an apparent catch in the slips because he thought the ball bounced before he caught it.

-   Australia second innings – Ricky Ponting walks rather than wait for a bat pad decision, a decision that could well have gone either way (BartMan edit - why didn't Symonds walk when he was out caught early in his innings, the cheeky monkey).

The Australian’s play the game very hard and try and excel in every aspect of the game, but that doesn’t mean they are bad sports or don’t follow the spirit of the game.  I would like to think that the Aussies took defeat well in the 2005 Ashes series, which was a very hard fought series.  For example, we didn’t threaten to pull out of the series when Kasperwich was incorrectly given out causing us to lose the 2nd test -  a key decision in the wash up. 

As for being arrogant bad sports, is there any worse act than threatening (multiple times now) to cancel the rest of the tour because decisions from officials appointed by the ICC and who are independent to both nations have gone against them? 

Ponting has my full support and the calls for him to be sacked as Australian captain are ridiculous.  He has made some mistakes but no more than his predecessors.