Allegations of racist chants, by the Aussie crowd, against Indian players threatens to take the sheen off a sure shot Australian victory
After terrible racist behavior on Day 3, an unruly crowd disrupted proceedings on Day 4 too, as security were forced to remove a section of the crowd.
Day 3 of the SCG test saw Australia take complete control of the test match. The day ended with Australia’s overall lead at 197 with 8 wickets still in hand, position of utter dominance.
But what made headlines was that a section of the Aussie crowd had made some racist jibes at Md. Siraj, who was fielding at the short leg boundary.
Apparently this had gone on for a couple of days before the Indian Captain Ajinkya Rahane finally took it up with the umpire Paul Reiffel. The victims were Md Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah. Later the Indian team management filed an official complaint with the match referee David Boon as well.
These kinds of incidents are in no way a representation of the culture of the people of that country and should be treated as a one off. Having said that, care should be taken that the perpetrators are banned from Cricket grounds for life. Cricket / sports has or should have no place for such bigoted people.
Day 4
Australia’s 2nd innings continued: Australia started the day in a very strong position and usually that means you have a bit of leeway to show your skill in batting/ bowling without the fear of failure. The Australian batsmen had nothing to fear really. Having said that, India started the day poorly on the field. Hanuma Vihari dropped an absolute dolly of a catch to give Labuschagne an early life. The score at that point was 105/2.
Navdeep Saini who didn’t bowl that well in the first innings, came to the party in the second. He picked up Labuschagne to deny him a hundred and then Matthew Wade too with Australia at 148/4. At this point Cameron Green came to the wicket and he along with Steve Smith forged a good partnership in the middle. With the score on 208 though, Australia lost its fifth wicket. Steve Smith taken by Ashwin, misses out on a century, gone for 81. After this there was another 100 run partnership for Australia. Cameron Green and Tim Paine combined to put on 104 runs, which ended when Green got out for a fantastic score of 84.
Australia finished on 312/6 setting India a target of 407 to win.
Indian 2nd innings: Chasing a total of 407, teams usually lose the match in the head even before they get on the field. India, with Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma, started well. They played with ‘intent’, choosing the balls to attack and defending or letting go of the rest. India lost their first wicket at 70, Shubman Gill out for 31. After playing a good knock of 52, Rohit too departed. Playing a hook straight to the third man. India 92/2, Pujara and Rahane at the wicket. India ended the day on 98/2.
India if they go on to lose the test, must hold their batting in the 1st innings responsible. On a flat Day 3 wicket they played with zero intent, barely scored any runs and eventually ended up 94 runs behind the Australian total. And that is where the test match was decided.
Australia should wrap this up on Day 5.
Making headlines again.
Day 4 again saw some condemnable behaviour by a section of the Aussie crowd. But unlike on Day 3, today police took swift action and removed them. There was also a swift apology from Cricket Australia on Twitter, which augurs well for the process of eradicating racism from cricket/sports completely, but it is still a long way home.
Cricket, or any kind of Sports is not meant to be grounds for any kind of hate. The charm of these games is their ability to bring the people together to enjoy the sport with Tolerance and Inclusion at the forefront of the fans expectations.
