 Cricket controversies in 2007
30th Dec 2007 23:03 IST
Manish Kumar
Verbal spats, sledging, abuse, racial abuse...it was all there in a big measure throughout the year. In January itself, Herschelle Gibbs was banned for two Tests for making abusive comments about a section of the crowd during the first Test against Pakistan, which was later changed to one Test, one Twenty20 and one ODI.
Darrell Hair's appeal to the London Central Employment Tribunal alleging racial discrimination by the ICC and the Pakistan Cricket Board continued throughout the year, till he later decided to drop the charges against the PCB.
Jamaica captain Wavell Hinds was banned for the rest of the year for alleged verbal abuse of umpires.
And then, during the Australian tour of India Andrew Symonds was apparently the target of racist abuse during the fifth ODI in Vadodara, when he was subjected to "monkey chants" by the crowd while fielding on the boundary. The "monkey taunts" were repeated in the seventh ODI in Mumbai and finally the board got into the act, and four offenders were evicted from the Wankhede Stadium and booked by the police.
In other news, Sunil Gavaskar apologised for his remark about David Hookes' death when criticising Australia's on-field behavior.
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