"Tell that to your mother!"

Careful lip readers could discern one of the Indian batsmen saying this to Glenn McGrath after McGrath bowled each ball and during his follow through ran well up to the batsman and started it all by saying something even nastier, I am sure. "Tell that to your mother!" This happened during the World Cup 2003.

I was so proud that one of the Indian youngsters could finally give it back to McGrath, instead of just looking away. Australian cricketers are long known for sledging. They play the mind game. In fact, Steve Waugh is popularly mis-quoted as having said "You just dropped the World cup mate" to the South African fielder during semi-finals of the 1999 World Cup when he was dropped. This may as well be just a legend, but it is indicative of the Australian arrogance.

One would argue that the Australians almost have the right to be arrogant and I could agree. They are so good. They have dominated international cricket for years. Show me a sport that doesn't involve some kind of sledging or another and I will show you Santa Claus.

The only problem I had with the Sydney test -- other than Steve Bucknor -- was the way the mighty Australians whined and complained because one of the Indian team members decided to give it back to them. If they give some -- and we all know they do-- they should be human enough to take some. That's what bothers me the most.

If Harbhajan said something racist, then the appropriate action needs to be taken against him. There is no place for racism anywhere.

What the Indians need to do is give some and take some, but most importantly play with your hearts out and beat them Aussies at cricket. That is exactly what happened at WACA. There were poor decisions, there were human errors, but Indians played superbly and beat the Aussies. Say what you gotta say through your batting, bowling and fielding.

It seems though that the Aussies looked like -- to borrow an analogy from a famous Marathi humorist -- a tiger on a prescribed vegetarian diet. They couldn't be nasty; they couldn't talk trash; they couldn't appeal vehemently; they couldn't win the game. It does seem like, the Aussies were handicapped by taking away the ungentlemanly part of their game.

Bring on the Adelaide Oval.