Ajinkya Rahane, who led India to the historic 2-1 Border-Gavaskar Trophy win in 2020-21, looked back at the SCG Test racism episode, and revealed his conversation with the match officials.
India’s four-match Test series against Australia during their 2020-21 tour will be remembered as one of the game’s best, with highly competitive cricket being played by the two teams, with the visitors miraculously emerging victorious by 2-1.
However, there were darker moments associated with the series too, with memories still fresh of a section of the home crowd hurling racial abuses at Indian cricketers Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah. It all started on Day 3 of the New Year’s Test, with the Indian team reporting the match-officials of the crowd’s behaviour.
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When it continued on the following morning, players alerted on the field umpires – Paul Reiffel and Paul Wilson – and demanded for an action to be taken. The play was suspended for 10 minutes, before the section of the crowd was evicted.
Rahane, who was leading the team then in Virat Kohli’s absence, revealed that he had insisted on evicting the spectators out of the ground, before the game could be carried on. The umpires told the players that they could walk out if they wish to, but Rahane was firm on his stance.
“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.
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,”
Rahane said on the sidelines of an event in Mumbai on June 1, to launch Bandon Mein Tha Dum, a documentary based on India’s memorable series win, set to be released on streaming service Voot Select later this month.
Ravichandran Ashwin, whose epic sixth-wicket rearguard with Hanuma Vihari in the fourth innings helped India salvage a highly improbable draw, lauded Siraj for bring the issue up to raise awareness in the wider section of the society.
“Yes, it happened at that ground [SCG] and at that place [Australia] a lot more. But it was courageous of him [Siraj] to bring it up so at least a wider section of people know and the people sitting next to such people in the ground do better next time.
“It is something one must condemn. But I want to bring it up that everywhere people are differentiating people on different grounds, which is not right,”
said the off-spinner.
As for the overall series, India were dented in the first Test in Adelaide, where they were bundled out for 36 in the third innings, their lowest ever total in the format. With regular skipper Kohli unavailable for the remaining three Tests, it appeared highly unlikely that India would recover from the eight-wicket mauling.
However, the team bounced back spectacularly in the following Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, with Rahane leading the way with a sparkling century in the first innings. The bowlers too, played their parts, with Bumrah, debutant Siraj and Ashwin bagging six, five and five wickets respectively across the two innings to set it up for a series-levelling eight-wicket win.
India were set a daunting 407-run target in the Sydney Test, and Rishabh Pant threatened to take the visitors home with a spell-binding 118-ball 97, before the Ashwin-Vihari pair rescued India with an unbeaten 42.4 overs stand.
An inexperienced bowling attack comprising Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan and Navdeep Saini excelled collectively at the Gabba, with Thakur and Sundar scoring crucial fifties in the first innings. Young guns Shubman Gill (91) and Pant (89*) stepped up on the final day to script a sensational three-wicket, series-clinching win.
