I have no idea if elementary schools in Australia teach kids to question each other's parentage and wonder about the sexual activities of other people's wives, mothers and sisters in the name of playing hard and being tough competitors but considering that the entire Australian team - past and present - are more or less of the same filthy standard in this regard, we can assume there must be some pretty consistent process somewhere that is working brilliantly.

That the Australian cricketers were scraps off the bottom of the garbage barrel in terms of manners and grace on the field of play is no secret to anyone who has watched cricket over the years, whether the leader be Border, Taylor, Waugh or Ponting. However, a new aspect of their character, or lack of it, is getting showcased more in the recent past, including during the just concluded test at Sydney - hypocrisy.

When a Glenn McGrath or a Ponting or a Slater engaged in blatant swearing activities on the field of play, the Australians laughed it off as being tough competitors and playing hard to win. Of course they might not be really to blame as much as those elementary schools in Australia we talked about earlier but it did made one wonder if a couple of well aimed boots on some prominent backsides might not have done a fair bit to contain the malaise. However, wimps that most of the cricketing world are, they made a few noises here and there but generally shut up after some time.

In addition to dominating on the field of play, the tough boys are no far behind in dominating in terms of hypocrisy from time to time. Little Glenny cried foul when confronted with "toughness" of the same kind, because his wife was ill and nasty Sarawan brought her into the serious debate they were having on tastes and flavors of various edibles. All said and done, I can appreciate the man's desire to defend his wife's good name but to put it crudely, this was something of a case of "meri biwi biwi; baki duniya ki biwi randi" (roughly translated - my wife is a wife, anyone other's wife is a whore).

So agreed that McGrath's wife had this illness and the taunt wasn't in good taste but does he habitually find out if his opponent's wives, girlfriends, sisters or mothers have any life-threatening illnesses before he decides they are prime targets for his invective? And who really told him that women not having cancer can be abused verbally while those who have cannot be? Did those elementary schools give him that education too? Well folks, you know now which schools not to send your kids to!

In this series at least, captain Ponting is no stranger to the hypocrisy bug. When he sat down with Kumble before the series and made a gentleman's agreement to honor the fielder's word on a doubtful catch, he forgot to mention that the same fair play could not be expected when talking about snicks to the keeper off the leg side and diving catches made off Dhonis where ten different angles on twenty different cameras expose his lying self-righteous indignation. There is an umpire to judge on things like that, he says; didn't I negate the appeal against Dravid in the first innings, he says; this shows my true blue character, he says! There is a umpire (first, second and third) to judge close catches too, Mr. Ponting, and when one hears of the likes of Ponting making gentleman agreements with the Kumbles of the world, in addition to wondering at the dim-wittedness of the Kumbles in trusting liars and hypocrites, one also wonders how those elementary schools define the term "gentleman". Do they have the picture of a shifty pirate, complete with eye patch and wooden leg, next to this definition?

The blonde, cherubic Michael Clarke who looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth; the same guy who edged a big one behind in the Sydney test and anxiously looked at the umpire to see if somehow temporary blindness (and hey, he wasn't hoping for THAT much considering the men in question) to the gentleman might result in his not having to drag his sorry behind to the pavilion; that same guy wants to be trusted when he claims to have caught Ganguly in the slips; the catch which television cameras show without doubt to have touched the ground even as he was tumbling his way through the motions. Frankly, I would just say that people projecting him as the captain-in-waiting are definitely on the correct track; he has just the right amount of deceit, cheek and self-righteousness in him to take up the coveted post being admirably manned currently by Ponting.

Gilchrist, the man who has taken on the title of Mr. Conscience of world cricket, is the worst of the entire gang because the Haydens, the Pontings, the Clarkes and the other gutter rats don't go around proclaiming themselves to be angels in white; the man who sees nothing wrong in appealing vociferously from behind the wicket when he knows that there is nothing to be screaming for, and yet claims to understand better than others as to what sportsman spirit means. Really, he is more dangerous than the Pontings and McGraths because one might actually get taken in by the smooth talker.

This gang of ruffians has been getting away with it because all said and done, they play amazing cricket and win every time they come on the field of play, and no one wants to speak out against a winner; to do so just means being labeled a whiner. Today when there is so much talk about how the Australians are cheaters and how they are the worst examples of sportsman spirit, one must realize that the world has been pampering them for years now. They snarl, growl and spit at opponents and the world gets taken in by their "play hard" arguments and says "Wow, these Australians are tough". I just rummaged through some archives and came up with this article and this one and the funny part is - almost seven years later, the issue is still the same.

We should stop shouting about the hurt feelings of Andrew Symonds at having to hear "monkey" taunts. Living in the company he does, he should be used to much worse. If he can dish out "m**her f**ker" and "b**tard" taunts, he should be able to take "monkey" taunts, quite frankly which no one except Symonds himself understands as being racial. If an angel were to be on the receiving end of even imagined abuse, one could be sympathetic, but everyone watching television knowing the kind of guy he and the rest of the gang are, I really think the cricketing world has better things to worry about than the insecurities of every Tom, Dick and Symonds.

Sack Ponting so he stops infecting the rest, send Symonds to a psychologist, throw a party that McGrath is no longer dirtying the cricket grounds across the world, send Clarke back to school as he might not be totally corrupted yet (he is yet young), give Gilchrist a sportsmanship plaque to hang on his living room wall and ask him to shut up about his weird thoughts on honesty and sportsmanship, get some gentlemen of honor - if they exist in Australia - to take over the Australian cricket team, and some years in the future, one might yet get to think well of Australians. The way the Australian system is, I have no doubt that the Pontings and Gilchrists can be thrown into the trash bin and still Australia can come up with a team that is the best in the world.

We need sportspeople playing sports, not thugs and hypocrites.