Right, here goes.
First of all, HB, Sir Alex and Cevno. If I offended you by questioning a part of the culture of Indian cricket, I apologise.
But it's a legitimate point to raise. I see an umpiring error, some see alien abductions. I see a crap lbw, others see a new world order. That's fine, whatever.
I raised the issue of whether there was a victims complex in Indian cricket as, I thought, a legitimate question. If someone says to me there is an underlying arrogance in Australian cricket, I don't take it as a sleight at me or at Australian people. Rather, in that case, it's right, and it's bitten them on the ass quite a few times.
I really don't see what the issue is with asking it as a question. And for the record HB, in that post where you quoted me ad nauseum, you very cleverly but disingenuously quoted me selectively re. the victim complex issue. you, plainly deliberately, left out the parts where I said this was my perception as an outsider and it may well be wrong. That's intellectually dishonest and more than a little disappointing.
And I don't see the problen with using the term "Indian cricket" in a collective sense, but again, if that's caused offence to you guys, then sorry.
I still think Ganguly is a **** though, and not because he complained about Bucknor. I just think he is. I thought it was pretty obvious that my issue wasn't with his complaining about Bucknor, but maybe I didn't.
Surely you don't think I was being racist in raising that point? You ask for specific examples - a living, breathing one is Gavaskar imo - from his walk off to his appalling auto-biography and his playing the race card when he can. The complaints about Bucknor I find in a similar victimisation-type way, but I understand you disagree. By far the worst was Kumble post-Sydney 07 though who, about two tests after verbally abusing Mo-Yo in the middle of a test before getting him out then celebrating how his ploy worked, walked off in Sydney and complained about the spirit of cricket.
Anyway, there are three examples that stick in my mind. I raise them only because you asked me to. When I think of things like this iand read posts along the line of "we wuz robbed", I don't see the problem with raising whether it was a problem in Indian cricket.
And as I said before, I may well be completely wrong, but I was waiting for someone to either agree or not. It wasn't a flame bait, it wasn't an attempt to troll. If that was the case I'd have raised it about two years ago when I first thought of it, instead of waiting til now to raise it.
But anyway, again, if I offended you I'm sorry. I'm sorry you saw fit to report it too.
But I stand by it. I think it's a reasonable question to ask.