Steve Bucknor - Man of the match

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The day 4 at SCG was filled with edges, almost spectacular catches (but not quite), definite negative play by Australia and incredulously bad upmiring. Before all that, however, Bhajji presented us with another proud occassion - Ponting's wicket within his first over. His celebration was as jubiliant as it was unrehearsed. He has now dismissed Ponting the maximum number of times for any bowler. That is some feat. I still dont like Bhajji, however, who has gotten himself smack in the middle of another racial controversy involving Symonds.

Hayden and Hussey played reasonably ok but not quite the scoring duo that they normally are. Clear negative play by Australia; not something we expected. The natives were also shouting "boring-boring" and it wasnt an exaggeration. Kumbles produced yet another couple of wickets out of nothing. The guy is a fighting machine. However, the man of the match will be Steve Bucknor who gave bad decision on a couple of occassions and one of them, Hussey is still out there (like Symonds was in the first inning). If Bucknor had his way, he would not have given even Clarke out who was caught off an edge at first slip. Clear deflection and noise (the catch was taken at first slip for crying out loud), but Bucknor was caught sleeping. Clarke refused to walk and it was only after a brief commotion where the audience (Aussies/Indians included)were stumped that he was finally given out. Incredulous !!! Mr. Steve finally resorted to bad light to avoid any further embarassment. I think his umpiring days should be over.