Australians are afraid

Australians have been declared by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) as the loser in their Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group I tie with India scheduled for May 8-10 at Chennai, says this news report. You must read the full report, even perhaps source additional material from other media outlets to understand the paranoia of Australians.

Australians are hesitant to come to Chennai, Tennis Australia (TA) says, on account of the security concerns. TA president Geoff Pollard said, “… we have major security concerns for the players, particularly during the election.” India is “an area of such high risk.”

Mr Pollard has been joined by John Fitzgerald, the Davis Cup captain in detailing and elaborating the risk. Mr Fitzgerald believes that ITF should have “followed the move to switch the Indian Premier League to South Africa due to security concerns.” Dismissing the assurance from various sources, including the positive reports of the security review, Mr Fitzgerald lists the recent events that have drip fed his concerns – “… dozens of people are killed along the campaign trail of the event … [a] train was hijacked.” He discounted the safe conduct of the ATP tour event in Chennai in January. He asks, if all the safety assurances are satisfactory, why did IPL move to South Africa?

Now, come to Todd Woodbridge, the most capped Australian Davis Cupper. He characterized the Indian situation as a “very, very difficult predicament with the way their social system’s running.” Suddenly, a tennis player has become the sociology professor!

My replies, which of course, Messrs Pollard, Fitzgerald and Woodbridge shall remain obviously oblivious to. IPL is a sustained campaign involving at least eight venues in eight cities with fifty nine matches to be played over a span of about a little more than a month. Davis Cup tie is a three day affair, at one location. The minimum seating capacity in an IPL arena is about 25,000 and that is at least twice as large as the capacity of the stadium for the tennis tie. The size of any one IPL contingent should be at least thrice as big as that for the Davis Cup.

That is, there is at least an order of difference between the security efforts required at the IPL campaign vis-à-vis the Davis Cup tie. It is really surprising that no one hit the three Australian Musketeers with this feature of their anomalous comparison.

Let me teach a few points of Indian sociology to the good Australian professor and his compatriots! India adds to its population nearly an Australian population every year (India’s eighteen million to Australia’s twenty one million). Our society is functional even under this ever increasing burden. What is a mere dozens of deaths in a surcharged atmosphere where 714 million people (thirty five times the population of Australia!) are exercising their rights? Will the Australian players be walking along the campaign trail, which is where such violence is encountered? I, as much as any Indian, would like to play out the ideal scenario - violence-free elections. But, when there are deviations from the idyll, we need to bring in the context. When we do, we see that India during elections is a model to emulate. Indeed, India is a country of low risk.

Pray tell how many of the Australian Davis Cuppers are going to travel by train, to cite as a concern the brief hijacking drama of a train in a place far from Chennai where the match is to be played. Please do not play up the fear factor because you end up undermining your arguments. That is my advice to Mr Fitzgerald et al.

By the time, the matches roll around, the election fever will be on the down side, having completed more than 80% of it. Chennai goes to poll on May 13th, the last of the five phases, three days after the Davis Cup tie. By then, the Australians would be ensconced quite comfortably in their native land, if not with a warm feeling of having entered the World Group (that is my prognosis for the event that is now not to be).

Now, I want to ask the Australians a few questions. Aren’t Australians going on vacation to Bali? Did the English team not come back after the Mumbai event to play out the test series? Was the English team not protected during the event and evacuated safely to their country? Will you refuse to go to the US to play a Davis Cup tie, because, after all the terror-defining 9/11 happened there? Did the Australian players not take part in Wimbledon when the IRA was active? You must remember that Louis Mountbatten was assassinated by the IRA. Japan has had terror attacks and so has China and not to talk of Russia, Israel, South Africa, Spain, Germany. Where will you play, please tell us. Iceland? Or, perhaps Antarctica? If I had the choice, I will send you off to Afghanistan. If you want to hide behind the reason of safety from terror attacks, you really have no place to hide.

Now, to conclude, I know why the Australians are not coming. They are afraid. They are not afraid for their safety but for their performance against India. It is better to lick the wounds before they are inflicted.

Raghuram Ekambaram