Ponting accuses India of racism, wow! (MX 18th Oct). Let's dig out. As we all know, racism is discriminating against, or vilifying, a person because of his/her race. The question here to ask, "was the crowd making monkey noises being racist, or was that just harmless fun? (I am talking about the the first one at Vadhora, which spurred the whole debate).
Ponting says that the monkey's color is dark and so it is aimed at dark-skinned Symonds. What Ponting thinks of the color of the "so called" abusers. Symonds was the only person in the entire Australian team whom the spectators could easily identify with. Moreover, almost all of the West Indian players have always commanded respect from millions of Indian cricket fans for their great cricketing skills and decent behavior. Then what went wrong? As Indian officials said the Indian fans might have targeted Symonds just because of his heated exchanges with Indian bowlers Harbhajan Singh and Shantakumaran Sreesanth. It has got nothing to do with his race.
Cricket was a gentlemen's game until "some teams" made racial slurs and sledging an art and tactics in the field to intimidate their opponents to win few games. So, Ponting, we also hope that that does not happen again in any another cricket match, because it leaves bad taste to everybody's mouth. Let's play decent, good cricket, free of sledging in the field, and that will show the crowds an example. Good luck.
