Bring back the birch, please

Having revealed himself on the opening night of the IPL to be a tit man, Ravi Shastri revealed to the world this week that he's also a fan of good old corporal punishment.

Shastri and Tony Cozier were on air together and were commenting on Sreesanth's remarkable success in the tournament following his fracas with Harbhajan (henceforth referred to as "the slap"). Shastri argued that Sreesanth had been in urgent need of sorting out (not many would disagree up to this point) and that his attitude had become unacceptable. He then said that the slap was exactly what Sreesanth had needed and that it had resulted in him becoming a more mature person. He concluded by saying that sometimes you need to hit someone for them to learn. Cozer diplomatically agreed: "Just like the little slaps our parents gave us when we crossed the line." Ranjit Fernando came on air next and said that Harbhajan might actually have done Sreesanth a favour by hitting him. Three days later Aamir Sohail also brought the isse up, citing Shasti and Fernando's analysis as being accurate.

I have some (a tiny amount) of sympathy for Cozier in expressing this sentiment- after all, he is 71 and of a generation that was so routinely beaten in school and at home that it came to be regarded as common and natural, and not as it is rightly regarded now: sociopathic and completely unacceptable. Shastri, who is 46, should know better. The idea that violence is the way to deal with disagreements has no place on the sporting field (a form of both playground and, especially in the IPL, workplace), just as it has no place in schools or in society. If such things did not pass unnoticed, the BCCI would surely have been a little embarrassed at this interpretation of an incident that they regarded as a PR disaster.

In an earlier post I claimed that Shastri, for all his leering, was the best Indian cricket commentator. I now have to recant that statement entirely.