Australian MP questions award to Sachin Tendulkar

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard may have endeared Australia to many millions of Indian cricket fans by announcing Sachin Tendulkar will receive an Order of Australia but sections of this country's cricket community are not so enamoured.

Great batsman he may be, as the Prime Minister pointed out in New Delhi yesterday with exquisite timing, but sections of the Australian cricket community still remember the central role he played in the Andrew Symonds scandal.

Tendulkar lied to an International Cricket Council appeal following the suspension of Harbhajan Singh for racially abusing Andrew Symonds during the Sydney Test in 2008 to save face for his country and his team mate, who was a serial offender.
While no one was surprised by Harbhajan's appalling behaviour, Tendulkar lost enormous respect on and off the field for changing his story from the original hearing to the appeal.
None of the Australian players involved in the drawn out farce wanted to comment publicly yesterday but Adam Gilchrist in his book True Colours described the appeal as a "joke".

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"Tendulkar, who'd said at the first hearing that he hadn't been able to hear what Harbhajan had said - and he was a fair way away, up the other end, so I'm certain he was telling the truth - now supported Harbhajan's version that he hadn't called Symo a 'monkey' but instead a Hindi term of abuse that might sound like 'monkey' to Australian ears," Gilchrist wrote.
"The Indians got him off the hook when they, of all people, should have been treating the matter of racial vilification with the utmost seriousness."
Tendulkar showed no respect for the Australian cricket community when he was in Australia last summer either.
At no stage did he ever bother to make a public utterance to his many fans and followers in this country, while India regularly locked its fans out of training, in contrast to Australia.
There were even widely held fears that Tendulkar would not respond to Mark Taylor when the former Australian captain and then board member made a presentation to the former Indian skipper during the Sydney Test, his last in Australia.
Tendulkar eventually did respond following a presentation on the ground as the SCG celebrated its 100th Test.
The Prime Minister revealed the rare honour during a visit to New Delhi, where she met with children in a slum playing cricket.
"This is a very special honour, very rarely awarded to someone who is not an Australian citizen or an Australian national," Ms Gillard said.
"(It is) a very special recognition of such a great batsman.
"Cricket is of course a great bond between Australia and India. We are both cricket-mad nations."
Tendulkar has played more times against Australia than any other cricketer, with 106 matches across Tests, ODIs and Twenty20 internationals, and five tours Down Under.
He becomes the first non-Australian cricketer to receive the Order of Australia since Brian Lara, who was given the award in 2009 "for service to Australia-Caribbean relations by promoting goodwill, friendship and sportsmanship through the sport of cricket".
Two other West Indies greats have also received the honour: Clive Lloyd in 1985 and Sir Garfield Sobers in 2003, but Sobers is an Australian citizen through marriage.
Australian cricketers who have been given Order of Australia honours include Sir Donald Bradman, Allan Border, Dennis Lillee, Max Walker, Bob Simpson, Keith Miller, Steve Waugh, Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Bill Lawry, Ricky Ponting, Peter Burge, Ron Archer, Alan Davidson, Dean Jones and Belinda Clark

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