Ghost of ‘Monkeygate’ comes back to haunt Sachin

In his memoir titled The Close of Play, Ponting said he didn’t understand why Tendulkar vouched for Harbhajan Singh during the appeal hearing but did not say anything when match referee Mike Procter initially suspended the spinner for passing allegedly racial comments at all-rounder Andrew Symonds. Ponting’s allegation does come across as a malicious attempt to tarnish the image of the iconic India batsman who has just announced that his 200th Test against the West Indies in Mumbai next month will draw curtains on his illustrious 24-year-long career.

‘I couldn’t understand why Sachin didn’t tell this to (match referee) Mike Procter in the first place,’ said Ponting, captain of Australia at that time.

Harbhajan was accused of calling Symonds a monkey during the 2008 Sydney Test and was suspended for three matches. But he was cleared in an appeal hearing, conducted by justice John Hansen from New Zealand, in which Tendulkar appeared as witness and gave a statement in favour of Harbhajan.

Ponting, in his recollection of the drama that unfolded, said he found it absurd when Harbhajan was merely fined after the incident which threatened to hurt the relations between the two countries. ‘Owing to an administrative error, the judge was never told about any of Harbhajan’s past offences, which meant the penalty was way less than what it should have been,’ Ponting was quoted as saying in excerpts published by Daily Telegraph.

‘As I pondered this result over the weeks and months that followed, I started to think that I needed to be more savvy about the off-field politics. Maybe the Indian cricket juggernaut of the 21st century is too influential to shake. But then I thought about the way a number of people in the game had questioned our motives; how they thought we were just seeking an advantage rather than acting on principle,’ Ponting wrote.