FIVE BIGGEST CONTROVERSIES IN INDIA-AUSTRALIA CLASHES

1981

MELBOURNE TEST: Sunil Gavaskar walked off the field with fellow opener Chetan Chauhan as he felt he was wrongly given out LBW by umpire Rex Whitehead. India manager Shahid Durrani intervened and asked them to return and the issue was resolved. Gavaskar later clarified that it wasn’t the umpire verdict but the vile abuse from bowler Dennis Lillee that had made him walk off.

2001

TEST SERIES IN AUSTRALIA: India skipper Sourav Ganguly upset his Australian counterpart Steve Waugh by continuously arriving late for the toss during that famous series. Later in his autobiography, Waugh wrote that that this was intentional from the Indian captain and that Sourav had turned up late seven times even as Ganguly always maintains that the delay was never deliberate.

2001

MUMBAI TEST: Australian opener Michael Slater was furious when the third umpire turned down his appeal for a catch against India’s Rahul Dravid in the first Test. A furious Slater argued with umpire S Venkatraghavan before turning his attention to Dravid. Slater was let off with a warning and he apologised to Dravid later for his behaviour.

2008

SYDNEY TEST: This is probably the biggest controversy in India-Australia history as a verbal argument between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds escalated when the Indian spinner was accused of calling Symonds a monkey. The matter took a legal turn. Things were resolved only after India threatened to call off the tour. Though Bhajji was given a 3-match ban, it was later revoked.

2012

SYDNEY TEST: A young Virat Kohli got irritated by the constant sledging from the crowd and retaliated with a middle finger gesture. He was later fined 50 per cent of his match fees by the match referee. The Indian batsman admitted that though cricketers are not expected to retaliate, the constant chants about his mother and sister had got to him and that made him react.