Showing signs of leadership even while away from the dressing room, India captain Virat Kohli has come in full support of pacers Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah who were at the receiving end of racial abuses on the third and fourth day of the ongoing Sydney Test.
Kohli took to Twitter and said that the behaviour meted out to the Indian players in Sydney has crossed the highest level of ‘rowdy behaviour.’ He urged urgency from the administrators in bringing all those guilty to justice.
Meanwhile, there is emerging clarity on what actually was said to Siraj on the fourth day of the Test that forced the pacer to bring it to the attention of skipper Ajinkya Rahane and on-field umpires Paul Wilson and Paul Rieffel.
News agency PTI has reported, citing an unnamed source in BCCI, that Siraj was called ‘brown dog’ and ‘big monkey’.
"Siraj was referred to as 'brown dog' and 'big monkey', both of which are racist slurs. The matter was immediately brought to the notice of on-field umpires. They were constantly abusing Bumrah too," PTI quoted an unnamed BCCI source as saying.
Earlier, the team management had reported issues of similar slurs made at pacers Bumrah and Siraj on the third day and the BCCI official said that they reported the matter at the end of the day only because they did not want to hold up play on the third day. But, umpires suggested that they report such cases immediately and hence the team decided to bring the umpires’ attention to the unruly behaviour of the spectators.
Meanwhile, Cricket Australia has apologised to the Indian team for facing such behaviour from the crowd and has made an outright appeal to fans on refraining from bringing the game down. The International Cricket Council (ICC) too has issued a statement condemning the behaviour of spectators at the SCG and has reiterated the support to Cricket Australia in the investigation of this controversial issue that jolted the game on the fourth day of the SCG Test which requires the touring Indian team to show all their character and defiance to deny the hosts a win.
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