Just because Harbhajan slapped Sreesanth doesn’t also mean that he called Andrew Symonds a monkey. There is no correlation © Getty Images

Four months ago, he was the wronged Indian, the “Sikh warrior” who had been done in by malevolent Australians. Today, he’s the villain, the hot-head who’s gone too far, been banned for the rest of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2008 edition – and who was probably guilty as charged by Andrew Symonds too.

The most ridiculous aspect of the Harbhajan Singh-Sreesanth controversy – which in any case is the most riveting episode the IPL has thrown up so far – is the fickleness of the cricket media and the regiments of newspaper commentators and sound-bite pundits. With specials programmes like Chhante ki Goonj (The Resounding Slap) and Tamache ka Takkar (The Clash of the Slap) – and I hope I have those names right – making a further mockery of news television, Harbhajan has gone from national hero to international anti-hero, from one ridiculous extreme to another.

There is no doubt the stand-in captain of the Mumbai Indians needed to be punished for hitting Sreesanth. Whatever the provocation, whatever the pressure, this was not on. It went too far.

Yet, four things need to be pointed out.

First, just because Harbhajan slapped Sreesanth doesn’t also mean that he called Andrew Symonds a monkey. It does not necessarily prove Sachin Tendulkar was lying when he gave evidence in Harbhajan’s favour in Australia. There is no correlation. Let us not get carried away.

Second, Sreesanth’s guilt may be less recognisable but he surely deserves a strong reprimand as well. He has been obnoxious throughout the IPL. He has sledged, abused and provoked rival players, even junior batsmen and plain tyros. It could be understood if he were resorting to verbal warfare when faced with a batsman who had reached 95 off 35 balls. Sreesanth, however, has more often than not begun the battle.

Third, even if one were to be extraordinarily charitable and exclude the recent tour of Australia and explain it as a case of a volatile cricketer being targeted by a clever opposition, the fact is Harbhajan is not the best behaved sportsman in the world. Sreesanth hasn’t slapped anyone yet but, overall, he’s even worse.

Nevertheless, each time this is brought up, it is explained away with some pop sociology or similar claptrap: “This is the new, aggressive India”; “For years, we have suffered, now we will give it back”; “These are boys from small towns, middle India – they don’t care for reputations, they are not deferential to the white man”.

I once brought up Sreesanth’s behaviour on a television programme and suggested somebody have a chat with him. It was instantly apparent that almost everyone in the studio disagreed with me. Ajay Jadeja, a fellow guest on the show, jumped to the fast bowler’s defence and said he was absolutely fine and it would be unfair to curb his natural instincts.

Agreed, bad behaviour is as old as cricket. Some of what the Australians did under Ian Chappell – and seem to be doing now under Ricky Ponting – cannot be condoned. There is a crucial difference between playing hard and playing dirty.

If Indian cricketers – “new”, “aggressive”, “super-confident”: choose your adjective – want to give it back when assailed or want to occasionally needle a batsman as he walks to the crease, I have no problem with that. There is an ocean that separates such acceptable gamesmanship from plain boorishness. Waving his bat, exercising his pelvic muscles mid-pitch, screaming and shouting, bearing his teeth, grimacing menacingly without reason, Sreesanth is the most visible face of this cricket boor; at least on television. The face, let us accept, is ugly.

Precedent can justify anything, and nothing. Kepler Wessels hit Kapil Dev in the shin in the early 1990s, John Snow knocked down Sunil Gavaskar in the early 1970s. Neither was right and both should still be embarrassed. Harbhajan and Sreesanth are no better, no worse. There are moral absolutes on the cricket field. The state of Indian society and its evolutionary juncture cannot change those absolutes.

Fourth, while Harbhajan is going to be sitting at home for the rest of the IPL and will forfeit his millions as well, it is my guess that Sreesanth has lost more in the long run. As Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s column in the Hindustan Times this [April 28] morning suggests, the Indian dressing room is less likely to take a clear-cut, good-bad binary position on the unseemly business. To the rest of the Indian squad, there need not be one obvious villain and one obvious victim.

My hunch is Sreesanth will face a few barbs for, to use a friend’s phrase, “ratting” on a colleague and breaking club rules. This is not a value judgment; it is a cold, cynical assessment. By making a public scene, playing the wronged guy, crying on camera, blaming it on his “fever in the morning”, Sreesanth has betrayed a streak for exhibitionism and a low emotional quotient.

On television, it works in his favour. In the Indian team bus, it could be his Achilles’ heel.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. IPL opens on Friday afternoon to excitement and enthusiasm, hype and hoopla. Yet, there is a certain disquiet over the opacity with which its business rules are being written and made up as we go along. The BCCI says it's corporatised Indian cricket, but what about corporate governance? I wrote this in The Pioneer this (April 17) morning.

	Is Lalit Modi a player who is being given authority as regulator? © Getty Images

Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, the Indian Premier League was supposed to be the Board of Control for Cricket in India's coming out party. Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, IPL is turning out to be the BCCI's self-inflicted public relations headache.

With the first ball due to be bowled -- and the first cheerleader squad due to begin dancing -- in Bangalore on Friday, April 18, afternoon, IPL is threatened with a boycott by news channels because it wants them to conform to unprecedented restrictions when showing match visuals. It has singled out cricket websites for special treatment, refused them entry to the media box and even the right to buy photographs from the usual news photo agencies.

The argument of Mr Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, is that the portal rights for the tournament have been sold to an 'American company'. It has exclusive permission to report the match on the Internet and upload pictures. The name of this 'American company' and the address of its Website are, however, unknown. They cannot be revealed because of its upcoming stock market float.

How can one visit a Website one doesn't know the address of? Ask Mr Modi and the BCCI.

Actually if you ask the bumptious IPL bureaucracy any questions, you are likely to be told off, dismissed as a small fry journalist who doesn't merit a hearing, since the IPL top brass knows your employer. At a meeting with sports editors in Mumbai this is precisely what happened. The journalists got no clarifications, only a long list of media barons whom Mr Modi had on speed dial: "I know your bosses. Why should I talk to you?" In another life, the IPL commissioner could have been Governor of Tibet.

This wasn't how the Great Indian League was supposed to be. The floating of IPL marked the marriage of cricket and capitalism, designed to give India a professional league and transparently-run sports clubs that would be accountable to fans and stakeholders. They would take rational and honest decisions when, for instance, choosing teams -- in short, be all that the BCCI itself had refused to be.

Admittedly, IPL has become a huge, huge business opportunity. In the past few weeks, every third BCCI official has been on television extolling the virtues of making money, underlining India's critical importance to the modern cricket economy and pointing out that a domestic T20 league with international stars is a template for 21st century cricket.

The self-congratulation may be misplaced but the IPL numbers are true. Simply put, eight teams, all of which are spending big on brandbuilding, have created a market for eight times as many cricket-related businesses than one Indian national team could do.

Consider the evidence. In the past four to six weeks, film studios and related production facilities in Mumbai have been so packed with IPL-linked shoots that some Hindi film units have actually migrated to Delhi and other cities. Such advertising frenzy has not been seen since just before the 2007 World Cup; perhaps, it is even larger.

The pie has expanded; there is now something for everyone. From Kolkata to Delhi, player agents and endorsement managers who hitherto fought and scrambled to get their favourite players into national reckoning have made comfortable arrangements with one IPL franchise or the other.

Yet, there is a fly in the ointment; or, a tampered ball in the kit bag. There is a difference between ethical capitalism and crony capitalism. A business environment without an independent regulator is a non-starter. In the case of IPL, the BCCI and its officials are playing regulator, making up rules as they go along -- alright, some of this may be unavoidable because this is year one -- but also promoting their own business interests and helping friends and associates.

Take the media issue. Over the past two years, the BCCI has begun producing its own pictures and hiring its own commentators. It pays a production house to actually put up and man the cameras and then, in real time, transfers the audiovisual feed to the channel that has paid it the most. The same model is being followed by IPL. It has hired TWI as a production house and sold the telecast rights to the Sony network

In a parallel move, Mr Modi and his associates have recently announced that the BCCI will eventually set up its own channel and run its own cricket portal. There is nothing wrong with this per se; Manchester United owns a television channel as do many other sports bodies/clubs.

The big difference is that there is a clear demarcation between those who run or have a stake in the club's media business and those who regulate the larger media environment for the individual sport. The chief executive of Manchester United TV does not also decide whether journalists from BBC or Sky Sports will be allowed into an English Premier League football match.

Now consider what is happening with IPL. Officially, the IPL governing body is a committee of the BCCI. Two members of the governing body are Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. This past week they ended their contracts with ESPN/Star Sports and signed on as the BCCI's in-house commentators. It is likely they will be in the commentary box for IPL matches. This seems highly irregular and could amount to a conflict of interest. The Election Commissioner cannot also anchor election news programmes on television.

Second, Mr Modi is seen as the marketing wizard of the BCCI. He is the likely promoter of the BCCI's upcoming channel and portal. There is the valid suspicion that he is using his dual status as IPL commissioner to cripple potential rivals and existing media outlets. In short, a player is being given authority as regulator.

Mr Modi is a man who wears multiple hats -- BCCI money guru, IPL overlord, a businessman with interests ranging from tobacco to media (he is the distributor in India of Fashion Television or FTV), most influential private citizen in Rajasthan. He is also IPL commissioner. It is an astonishing and demanding array of job descriptions.

It would be best for Mr Modi's punishing schedule -- and for the credibility of IPL and the BCCI -- if he gives up the IPL commissioner's post before the 2009 tournament. The BCCI should hire a complete outsider from a totally unrelated industry -- anybody with an interest in cricket and an appropriate background in business economics would do -- and pay him a market-determined salary.

It should also ask all IPL governing council members to sign an affidavit that they have no stakes, stated or unstated, in any franchise and are not benefiting financially from the tournament. These are routine insider trading clauses. For years the BCCI has ignored them; IPL cannot afford to do so.

	Indian cricket is treating the South Africa series with the same “let’s get this over with” contempt © AFP

Only India could have done this. Just weeks after one of the most rivetting, pulsating and action-packed set of Test matches in history, India is one part – the bad, listless part – of a Test series that is turning out to be a “no contest”.

This is not to suggest there isn’t good cricket on offer. The South Africans are playing brilliantly and imperiously, looking – at least in April 2008 – the best team in the world. Their fast bowling has been impressive and made its presence felt even on the tombstone wicket in Chennai. As for Ahmedabad, any team that bowls out the other in 20 overs in the opening session of a Test match – however helpful the pitch and whatever the state of the opposition – deserves accolades.

As of now, the South Africans are running away with the series. Other than the bauble of Sehwag’s 300, the Indians have nothing to remember it for. They look jaded and tired; their minds are on the IPL carnival. They are not Test match fit – and this is not merely a reference to the physical condition of individual players.

Indeed, the entire Indian cricket structure – establishment, officialdom, fans, media – is treating this series as some sort of a walk-on role, an interlude between the sublime concert in Australia and the rock star frenzy that the IPL promises to be.

Frankly, only one side is treating this as Test cricket – hallowed tradition or hard sport, whatever it may be. That side is not India.

It’s a question of priorities. More than once, after a long series down under, we’ve heard visiting or Australian captains say that they’re too tired by the end of the endless ODI tri-series that climaxes the Australian season. It’s treated as a tiring and tiresome sideshow, after the main event – the Test series – is over.

Indian cricket is treating the South Africa series with the same “let’s get this over with” contempt. From next season, Cricket Australia is junking the tri-series altogether. What if some smart Indian official decides Test cricket is a waste of time? Indian cricket’s focus – commercial and political, given there’re simply more matches to hand out to allied state/city associations – is on ODIs.

With the T20 fever at the cusp of turning into an epidemic and with IPL about to explode on us, the calendar is going to be even more packed. It’s a myth that the IPL franchise teams will play a tournament in India for 44 days and simply disappear for the remaining 321 days of the year. Already there’s talk of an “IPL exhibition series” in England. As the franchisees seek to strengthen their brands and clubs identities, they will inevitably lobby for more cricket featuring IPL teams. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

What does all this mean? Test cricket will be pushed even further down the agenda. The BCCI will speak about how it treasures the longest game, but do nothing to preserve it. Short Test series will be fitted in between T20 razzmatazz and seven-eight game ODI series. South Africa is playing three Tests, later in 2008 England will come to India for only two.

Is there a way out? I have a five-point route map for preserving Test cricket while acknowledging it will have limited appeal in the years to come. Even so, serious film festivals co-exist with multiplex blockbusters. Similarly, Test cricket must be given its due amid a plethora of 20 and 50 over events.

So here’s my five-fold path:

1. The ICC should formally announce that all future expansion of cricket nations is going to be in the ODI and, more likely, T20 formats. China, the United States, Malawi, whatever, whoever may someday take part in the T20 World Cup but will never play Test cricket.

2. To ensure quality it would be a good idea, in fact, to reduce the number of Test teams. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe should be derecognised as Test teams. They can continue to play as many ODIs or T20 internationals as they want, even set up IPL franchise clones of their own

3. No Test series should be less than four matches long. Six Test match series went out with the 1980s, but four or five Tests would ensure a fair contest. That length would allow a team to recover from a sluggish start. Imagine a fourth or fifth Test against South Africa, with Zaheer Khan and R.P. Singh back with the new ball and Sachin Tendulkar back in the order ... A three (or two) Test series is a shame, even a travesty.

4. Test cricket should always be played in the host country’s core cricket season. For instance, India must play home Tests between November and February, not in April or May. Sri Lanka must not be forced to host Test series in rain-swept August only because it suits the visiting team’s travel schedule.

5. Since the number of ODI/T20/IPL/IPL-style fixtures is only going to grow (perhaps exponentially), what points 3 and 4 would suggest is that a Test team may be able to play only one or two series in a year. Test series will have to be spaced out, as they once were before a frenetic ICC Future Tours Progamme took over. Nevertheless, fewer Test series are worth the sacrifice provided they are longer and, almost by definition, more engaging.

Make Test matches collector’s items. Right now, the ICC and the BCCI are leading a movement toward commodifying Test cricket. It worked for ODIs and may do so for T20, but is the kiss of death for five-day cricket. That is the lesson from the ongoing India-South Africa encounter.