Bird supports India

Indian cricketers can take pride for carrying the tradition of maintaining the spirit of the game with legendary umpire Dickie Bird saying he has always found them “gentleman” and all past Indian players have been a credit to the game, reports PTI from Melbourne.

“I have always found Indian team going back to Gavaskar, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, Wadekar, when I umpired them, as gentleman and I mean in all sense of the term. They all have been credit to the profession and credit to the game of cricket,” Bird said.

Phil, Hayden support

Australian opening pair of Phil Jaques and Matthew Hayden have strongly defended their side amidst widespread criticism of unsporting attitude against their team, saying they have been fair on the field and do not need to change their approach, reports PTI from Sydney.

“I’m sure the other guys would have said something as well. I think we play the game in the right spirit,” Jaques said.

Hayden said that cricket would turn into a robots game, if emotions are not displayed on the field.

‘Play in right spirit’

Aghast with the conduct of players and umpiring decisions coming in for sharp criticism in the Sydney Test, Indian tennis legend Vijay Amritraj said that every sportsperson is a professional and should play in the right spirit, reports PTI from New Delhi.

“Decisions can be right, wrong or indifferent but that is not important. But what happened (in Sydney) was very sad,” Amritraj said.