The cricketing world faced a massive shock when the news of the 46-year-old former Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds' death broke on Saturday (May 15) night. The Australian star suffered a fatal car crash on the outskirts of Townsville, Queensland, and despite efforts from medical professionals to revive him, they were unable to do so.
Symonds, a two-time World Cup winner with Australia, played 198 ODIs and 26 Tests for his team. He was one of their better finishers at the turn of the century. However, his career was marred with a plethora of controversies, and the biggest of them all was the infamous 'Monkeygate' scandal between former India spinner Harbhajan Singh and Symonds.
The 'Monkeygate' scandal is considered among cricket’s most usual and bizarre racism scandals which took place during the infamous 2008 Sydney Test between India and Australia. In a verbal confrontation with Harbhajan, Symonds allegedly faced racial abuse.
During the altercation, Singh claimed to have mouthed the words 'Teri Maa Ki' which Symonds heard as ‘monkey,’ and he allegedly took it as a racial slur. The Indian spinner was then sanctioned by the ICC, but the ban was overturned after the fact was clarified by Sachin Tendulkar that Harbhajan had not said the alleged racial slur.
The incident almost caused the tour to be called off as Harbhajan was charged with racial abuse by the ICC. However, the spinner continued to maintain the stance that he never used the word 'monkey' to refer to Symonds and the line used was 'Teri maa ki' (Your mother...) in Hindi which was misunderstood as 'monkey'.
In a recent chat with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Symonds shed light on the incident, its aftermath, and how the saga affected him mentally. "From that moment on that was my downhill slide. I started to drink heavily as a result of it and my life was starting to dissolve around me felt the pressure and the weight of dragging those mates of mine into the cauldron of this cesspit that should never have got to this sort of point where we felt guilty," Symonds said weeks before his death.
India's Harbhajan was handed a three-match ban after the incident. However, the ban was later overturned after the Indian team threatened to pull out of the tour.
"I was dealing with it the wrong way. I felt guilty that I'd dragged my mates into something I didn't think they deserved to be involved in," he added.
