Heat generated off the field robbed the tour of some of its sheen

The first official tour to India was made by Douglas Jardine's England team in 1933-34. Since then there have been innumerable tours by various countries. Some are remembered even today for the excellent spirit the game was played in, outstanding performances or the keenness of the contest. Of course some tours may also be remembered for wrong reasons - unseemly controversies or the lop sided nature of the results. But years from now, there is little doubt that the tour by Australia to this country towards the end of the 2000-2001 season will be remembered for both the right and wrong reasons.

The standard of cricket was high, there were many great individual performances and both the Test series and the one day contest went down to the wire. If the eight week trip had only these qualities, then the tour would qualify as the most memorable made by any team to this country. Unfortunately the sledging, the bad behaviour and the animosity between some of the team members - or should one say more precisely the two captains - means that the tour will be recalled in later years for providing everything - the good, the bad and ugly.

Which is a pity, for the off the field controversies and on the field bad behaviour should not be allowed to cover up the almost ethereal quality of cricket that one saw between two highly competitive sides. Perhaps, in the final analysis, a bit too competitive!

Unfortunately, like in life when one has to take the rough with the smooth, for the record, it has to be mentioned for posterity that the tour saw the best and the worst associated with cricket. Things actually developed along both lines after the tour commenced. On the cricketing front, few gave the Indians much chance of winning against the well oiled Aussie machine that was on a roll. Fifteen consecutive Test victories, ten successive one day wins against a home team which seemed to have given up the winning habit - except against teams like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. The only comfort for the Indians was the fact that Australia had not won a Test series here since 1969 and realising the importance of the occasion, Steve Waugh hailed the ensuing battle in colourful terms - `the final frontier'.

Such talk seemed to set the tone for the series but unfortunately the utterances that followed were the kind the game can do without. Without going into who started the war or words, it must be said that both Steve Waugh and Sourav Ganguly must be held responsible for the increasingly sour relations between the teams. The one-upmanship continued throughout the tour and with match referee Cammie Smith doing little to curb growing misbehaviour, things started to spin out of control. The media, as only to be expected, fanned the controversy and off the field, the relationship became more and more acrimonious.

Some of the ill feeling spread over to on the field and the pressure on the players became increasingly intense. In the heat generated by the close battle, not to mention the oppressive weather and some dodgy umpiring decisions, matters tended to go overboard. But with all this, such was the quality of the cricket that even the many unsavoury incidents were to a large part covered.

Indeed, some of the batting and bowling performances, the many fluctuating fortunes and India's great showing in coming from behind to get the better of formidable and seemingly unbeatable opposition in the Test series was a once in a lifetime showing. Some of the memorable events - Australia's swift victory in three days at Mumbai, India's epic triumph at Kolkata, the thriller in the decider at Chepauk, the performances of Matthew Hayden, VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh - have all been chronicled. And this has been followed by a keenly fought one day series which also went down to the wire with Australia salvaging some pride. What more could a cricket connoisseur ask for? Oh yes, he could have asked for the heat generated off the field to be avoided and for the some of the players to observe a bit of decorum. Undoubtedly, this disreputable aspect robbed the tour of some of its sheen.