Match Referee Chris Broad,has written to the ICC that there were racial comments from the crowd during the fifth match at Vadodara last week.
MELBOURNE: Match Referee Chris Broad, overseeing the India-Australia one-day cricket series, has written to the ICC that there were racial comments from the crowd during the fifth match at Vadodara last week, local media reported on Monday.
The former England opening batsman has filed a report to the sport's world governing body mentioning that there were racial taunts during the game which Australia won by nine wickets.
However, it was unclear whether Broad filed another critical report in this regard about Sunday's match at Nagpur, where all-rounder Andrew Symonds was allegedly the victim of monkey chants, Fox Sports said.
An ICC spokesman confirmed on Monday that Broad had alerted the game's governing body of his concerns. The spokesman said that the match referee has a standard anti-racism proforma to fill in at the end of every Test and one-day international.
"It just so happens that he filled it in slightly differently from the norm," the spokesman was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Cricket Australia has expressed its sympathy with BCCI over the difficulty in countering crowd racism.
CA public affairs manager Peter Young, also Australia's anti-racism officer, said "It can undeniably be difficult with spectator comment. Most of the time you don't get to hear it."
He said Australia had similar problems when South Africa's players complained of racial abuse, in Afrikaans, during its tour two years ago.
"When South Africa was here two summers ago, no one from CA or any of the state associations ever heard the comments and it made it very hard to locate the alleged offenders and then take action."
"All we could do was go through the policy and reinforce all those things that we were able to reinforce the training of venue staff, ensure the communication to spectators was clear and the like," he said.
Young hinted the Indian Board could initiate its own probe if it felt the need to do so.
"The code doesn't say you have to receive an official complaint before you investigate it," he said.
CA had left the matter to the ICC and was waiting to see what it does.
"The ICC has taken the issue up. It will be interesting to see what the outcome is," he said.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}