Last Updated on 3 years by Charbel Coorey
Cricket News: We insisted on getting Siraj & Bumrah abusers out of the SCG – Rahane | Ajinkya Rahane speaks of the racial abuse situation at the SCG
Ajinkya Rahane has revealed that the Indian players insisted on getting the miscreants who racially abused Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah out of the ground during the infamous Sydney Test in January 2021.
The Indian players had brought this issue up with the match officials at the end of the third day’s play. They again alerted the umpires when certain spectators continued to hurl abuses on the fourth day.
The on-field umpires, namely Paul Reiffel and Paul Wilson, told the Indian players to return back to the dressing room if they didn’t want to play. However, the Rahane-led side stood firm on expelling the spectators and subsequently getting on with the game.
“When Siraj again came to me [on the fourth day, after being abused the day before], I told the umpires that [they] need to take action and we won’t play till then,” Rahane was quoted in a report by ESPN.
He added, “The umpires said that you can’t stall the game and can walk out if you want. We said that we are here to play and not sit in the dressing room and insisted on getting the abusers out of the ground. It was important to support our colleague given the situation he had been through. What happened in Sydney was completely wrong.”
Situation was particularly grim in Sydney towards Siraj and Bumrah – R Ashwin
Speaking at the launch of Bandon Mein Tha Dum, a documentary on that historic series, Ravichandran Ashwin revealed that the situation was particularly grim in Sydney as compared to Melbourne and Adelaide.
“Personally I think Adelaide and Melbourne weren’t as bad. But this has been a continuous thing at Sydney. I have experienced it as well. They do tend to get nasty,” the off-spinner was quoted in the aforementioned report.
He lauded Siraj’s courage for bringing up this matter at that point in time. Ashwin explained that people everywhere have a belief that they ‘belong to a majority sort of thing’ and that they feel that they can have their way with things.
“And I think racism is one tip of it, where people believe that is a way of differentiation with someone. The only solution is better parenting and better awareness,” Ashwin further opened up on the whole debate. The 35-year-old called upon everyone to condemn such situations and asserted that people are differentiating against each other on separate grounds and that it is not right.
