KEY POINTS:
If Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds reads poetry, he might now be pondering Sir Walter Scott's famous couplet: "O what a tangled web we weave/When first we practise to deceive."
When Symonds bunted one to the wicketkeeper and stood his ground, trusting in the incompetence of umpire Steve "Mr Magoo" Bucknor, little did he realise that he was triggering a chain reaction which would plunge cricket into its greatest crisis since the last one.
Symonds was the common thread in the three controversies that, depending on your point of view, disfigured or enlivened the Sydney test match: the umpiring, the Australian team's conduct, and the alleged racist abuse.
With regard to Harbhajan Singh's exchange with Symonds, it sticks in the craw that the Australians, of all people, should now be running to the match referee complaining that the opposition has been nasty to them.
However, that's beside the point, as is the prattling about cultural differences: if Harbhajan called Symonds a monkey - not for the first time, the Australians say - he should suffer the consequences, as Aussie batsman Darren Lehman did in 2003.
But this is where it gets murky. It's the word of four Australians against two Indians, one of whom - Sachin Tendulkar - is the epitome of grace under pressure. In this very game three of the accusers - Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, and Symonds - acted in a manner that cast doubt on their integrity, let alone their grace. The fourth, Matthew Hayden, happens to be the leader of Australia's sledging wolf-pack.
Factor in that their complaint led to the banning - now under appeal - of Harbhajan, a bowler who seems to have the wood on Ponting, and it's hardly surprising the Indian authorities weren't prepared to take the Aussies' word for it.
An added twist is that many in the cricketing world will be quietly chuckling at the spectacle of India squirming on the racist petard given the readiness of the Asian countries to cry racism whenever their players fall foul of officialdom.
Neutral umpires solved one part of the problem but umpiring controversies are inevitable when everyone watching at home or at the ground knows straight away that an error has been made. Administrators who look the other way when slow-motion replays expose egregious mistakes by match officials are like the toadies who pretended not to notice that the emperor had no clothes.
In this instance the heat was cranked up because Bucknor, an umpire the Indians have long mistrusted, made two particularly shocking calls, the first of which deprived India of their best chance of winning the match and the second - giving Rahul Dravid out caught behind off his knee - of their best chance of saving it.
At India's behest, Bucknor has been relieved of his duties for the third test, prompting rumblings about blackmail and setting dangerous precedents. While the process might have been messy, the fact is that a supposedly elite umpire made an unholy hash of a crucial game and has paid a price. Isn't that exactly the sort of accountability which players and coaches have been demanding for years?
Having elected to compound tawdry behaviour on the field with shrill self-righteousness off it, the Australian players have only themselves to blame for the lashing they've received. Watching Ponting insist that black is white and rounding on an Indian journalist who dared to believe the evidence of his own eyes, one was reminded that there is no greater test of character than spectacular success.
Urging him on from the wings was the vexatious figure of Gilchrist whose campaign to restore walking has been fatally undermined by his teammates' complete indifference and his own lack of scruple behind the stumps. No doubt he could come up with some justification for this discrepancy but sophistry seems out of place on the moral high ground.
Besides, the grating triumphalism that is now the Australian team's default setting means that even when they do have a point, few will be inclined to listen.
Commentators have ascribed extra significance to this row because it pits the strongest cricketing nation against the richest. The Aussie position as articulated by Gilchrist - "We're not sorry about anything" - and Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland - "The Australian team plays the game rough, tough and uncompromising; it's the way Australian cricket teams have played since 1877" - seems to be that if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
But it mightn't be long before India pretty much runs the kitchen. Given the way Australian cricket glories in its win-at-all-costs approach on the field, it can hardly complain if India then proceeds to display a similar brand of blinkered ruthlessness off it.
