KEY POINTS:
Sport loves villains and in this cricket has scored big in Australia.
As to who the baddies are, that is a more confused story.
The good news for cricket is that unlike a World Cup which sent a global audience off for a snooze, India's remaining clashes against Australia will have us planted in front of the screen. That's if India scrap their plans for a pull-out, which they must.
There is a disturbing, parallel storyline involving India's enormous financial clout and hints about their ability and desire to break away from the ICC. Cricket, it is claimed, is on the brink of a disastrous split.
Common sense, and dollars and cents, should prevail. Australia and India are estranged bedfellows for now, but that is better than divorce.
And there are lessons to be learnt out of this drama in Australia. Sledging, an activity virtually invented by the Australians, has got out of hand. The players, who are the only ones with the power to stop it, must act.
But there is also a full-blooded battle at hand in Australia which is as enticing as it feels dangerous. Maybe - with crisis in the air - the players will realise that enough is enough sledging-wise, and get on with the real attraction.
Rivalry and revenge - they are at the heart of sport's attraction. Cricket's most famous example is the rancorous bodyline series, which ultimately drilled cricket deeper into England and Australia's consciousness and gave the rest of us a topic to gnaw on forever.
Even the underarm controversy, the ultimate low blow, has found a comfortable place in cricket legend although at the time it felt as though war might break out.
Drudgery drives the fans and media away, not controversy. Just look at the booming English football Premier League, the world's pre-eminent sports competition, whose daily diet includes managerial malcontents and the activities of young men who specialise in having more than a few footballs in the air and with phone cameras to prove it.
In the United States, the unbeaten New England Patriots are attracting both hate mail and record television viewing figures.
Troubled, even villainous, figures - Mike Tyson, Paul Gascoigne, Maradona, Ty Cobb, John McEnroe - are always subjects of fascination. For every tut tut, you can hear a thousand click-clicks through the turnstiles.
Calmer cricketing days will arrive but there will always be an extra edge to contests between Australia and India. Cricket, with areas of massive appeal, will survive.
Poor umpiring led to a rising tension in the Sydney test, which finished in an uproar with claim and counter-claim of offensive, even racist, taunts by rival players and unsporting behaviour by the Australians.
As a result, the tempestuous Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh received a three-match ban for allegedly calling Andrew Symonds a monkey. India claimed Brad Hogg had referred to them as bastards.
I'll leave it for the paid ICC officials to sort that puerile mess out, but these on-field exchanges pale compared to the words of the Indian manager Chetan Chauhan.
"[Bastard] is a serious term ... it has a lot of bad meanings back in India ... a child born out of wedlock is considered to be very low and an outcast. We don't use this word at all," said Chauhan.
If this indeed is the accepted treatment of children in the India that Chauhan portrays, then it is a nation which needs to take a good hard look at itself. The burning of umpire effigies is also an appalling disgrace.
As for cricket, India's threat to go home is a petulant act not worthy of their boundless love of the game. They should be told to grow up and get on with it.
They were hard done umpire-wise in Sydney, and the ICC needs to increase the umpiring standards, and standardise the use of television replays. Ultimately, this cost Steve Bucknor his job.
But to endure is to win, and the so-called hardship the Indian cricketers are facing - and one which hardly rates next to that which apparently befalls their nation's illegitimate children - is hardly new.
The baggy green caps get the rub of the green in Australia, somehow, just as Indian batsmen and bowlers have in their country over the years. If this was enough to send touring sports teams home, there would be many incomplete tours and not just in Australia.
Australia have yet another magnificent team and their reputation should not be sullied by this Sydney storm. They include humble and engaging cricketers, Brett Lee and Michael Hussey to name two standouts.
Ricky Ponting's Australia are unrelenting pursuers of victory though, and need reminding of their duties as professional sportsmen from time to time. But refusing to walk, throwing bats, claiming catches, over-appealing etc are not acts limited to Australia.
As for a remedy to the current mess, wise counselling and conciliation are better avenues to pursue rather than the suspension of Singh - which is under appeal - on what is hotly disputed evidence. India have every right to say "prove it" and Singh is being supported by the exemplary Sachin Tendulkar, which is a major in my book.
India would forever be branded as quitting losers if they leave early. The breaking point was match referee Mike Procter's banning of Singh. But Procter is a South African appointed by the ICC. India were done in by neutral umpires. So where does Australia's fault lie there?
India's job is to stay and fight, to take on the hurdles rather than run from them. There are enough standoffs in the world, without international sports teams retreating to closed corners.
And both teams must strive to put the game back on an honourable battleground. The ICC needs to show a similar spirit in improving the running and officiating of the game.
