REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Thursday October 18, 2007

INDIAN fans turned on Australia at Wankhede Stadium, bombarding Gold Coast allrounder Andrew Symonds with graphic racial taunts and disgusting personal abuse.

Mumbai showed its dark side in the seventh and final Future Cup clash - taking its cue from an Indian Cricket Board that has branded Symonds a liar over his claims of racial taunts in the fifth clash in Vadodara.

An Australian photographer captured the first evidence of Indian crowds’ outrageous racial vilification of Symonds.

The 40,000-strong crowd erupted with a torrent of abuse as Symonds left the dressing room to replace No. 4 batsman Brad Hodge.

Many members of the crowd jumped up and down like gorillas and made animal noises. Local officials reacted by flashing the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Racism code on the venue’s big screen … to little effect.

A rattled Symonds was dismissed first ball and remained rooted to his crease, perhaps indignant at an apparent round of abuse from the Indian team after his dismissal.

Board of Control for Cricket in India Anti-Racism officer Ratnakar Shetty said that he does not believe in the code he was being asked to administer.

Immediately before the game, BCCI secretary Niranjan Shar had backed the comments of Mr Shetty, who said the ICC Anti-Racism code was flawed.

“If you put too much emphasis on it (the code) at the ground, people become unnecessarily aware of it. It is very difficult to complain about someone publicly chanting,” said Mr Shar.