Indian opener Virender Sehwag has dramatically raised the temperature surrounding tomorrow's first Test against Australia in Bangalore by loudly claiming the Australians cheated to win the spiteful Sydney Test match in January.
Sehwag repeated the view widely held within the Indian team that last summer Ricky Ponting's team had taken advantage of a pre-series catching pact to accept the word of the opposition by claiming half-volleys on the desperate final day at the SCG.
It was this view as much as anything else, including Andrew Symonds' refusal to walk after an obvious edge behind on the first day of the match, that led Indian skipper Anil Kumble to state: "Only one team was playing in the spirit of the game".
"We suffered the most in the catches pact during the last series," Sehwag told ESPN-STAR.
"There is no point in having such an arrangement when the Australians are claiming one-bounce catches.
"We'd have won the Sydney Test if they hadn't claimed catches off half-volleys in that game."
Sehwag's comments are provocative in the extreme, particularly when it is considered that Ponting was hoping to seek a reinstatement of the catching pact, after demanding the highest standards of on-field behaviour from his players during the forthcoming series.
"I will have a think about it and see if I think it is the right idea to bring it up again," Ponting said last week.
"Anil was the one who did not want that after the Sydney Test for one reason or the other.
"We will have a chat (before this series) and it's important to us Australians to play the game in the right spirit and embrace the culture."
The Sydney match almost saw Kumble's Indians pull out of the series after a string of controversial umpiring decisions.
The tourists agreed to continue only after the International Cricket Council pacified them by standing down West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor from the subsequent Perth Test.
Indian officials again threatened to abandon the tour before a charge of racial abuse against Harbhajan Singh by Andrew Symonds, following an incident that took place in Sydney, was downgraded to the lesser offence of using abusive language.
Sehwag said the hosts held an edge in the coming series as they had a balanced bowling attack.
"Bangalore, Mohali and Nagpur (venues for Tests) have offered good bounce in the past and we can take advantage of these conditions with tall, fast bowlers," he said.
"If we have spinning tracks, we have the spinners to extract advantage. Their spin department is weak and there is a wide possibility we can win the series either 3-0 or 3-1."
