The Sydney Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2007-08 witnessed many controversies erupting. While the umpires heavily favoured the Aussies, standoff between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds became the highlight of the game.
As the Australian team accused Harbhajan of racially abusing Symonds by calling him a ‘monkey,’ Indians cleared their stand and denied the claim.
The heated exchange between the two teams led to the monkeygate scandal as Harbhajan was handed over a three match ban, which was later reduced to 50 per cent fine of his match fee.
In an interaction on Backstage with Boria, Harbhajan Singh recollected the whole episode and felt that the Australians were disrespecting his religion.
“I was disturbed and wondered why was all this happening. Why is a thing that never happened in the first place being blown out of proportion? There were 6-7 witnesses for an act that I had never committed. Nobody heard it and they made a big deal out of nothing and whatever was being said to me on the ground, ‘You have testicles on your head’, and for me to hear that and my religion being insulted was a difficult thing,” Harbhajan was quoted as saying to sports journalist Boria Majumdar.
Teammates were by Harbhajan’s side during the Monkeygate saga
Further, the veteran off-spinner added that his teammates came in full support of him. However, he did not converse much with the team regarding the incident.
“Only I knew how I used to spend time in my room during that difficult phase. I never thought of having a word with the players or the management because they were anyways with me. In the whole incident, they were backing me but since my stress level had already reached beyond a certain level I did not want to stress anyone else. So, I had to deal with whatever way I could and I am glad that I could and I could go out there and play and win a few games for Team India in Australia,” Harbhajan mentioned.
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While Harbhajan and Symonds had a fierce rivalry once, they buried their hatchet and played together in the IPL for Mumbai Indians.
