In what would be music to the ears of Harbhajan Singh, ICC Match Referee Jeff Crowe on Monday ruled out taking any action against the Indian off spinner.
BRISBANE: The International Cricket Council on Monday ruled out taking any action against Harbhajan Singh, who has been alleged to have made monkey gestures at the Sydney crowd, for lack of evidence against the Indian off-spinner.
Harbhajan has also denied any wrong doing and the ICC's decision may put the lid on the latest controversy to hit India's turbulent tour Down Under.
Australian media reports claimed that Harbhajan had made monkey gestures towards the Sydney crowd during the first final of the tri-series against Australia on Sunday.
"I have investigated the alleged incident with Cricket Australia's ground security officials after reading newspaper reports and viewing related photographs that have been published.
"After reviewing all available information, I conclude that there is no need to take any action against Harbhajan Singh," Match Referee Jeff Crowe said in a statement.
Harbhajan, who was recently involved in a racism row with Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds, rubbished the allegations and said no evidence could be produced to prove him guilty.
When The Indian spinner was informed that the official broadcaster Channel 9 might not have any incriminating evidence to offer to the Match Referee to nail him down, the Indian spinner was not surprised.
"Obviously, they wouldn't have anything because I didn't do anything," said Harbhajan on arriving in Brisbane, looking to build on to his fabulous performance on Sunday with a series-sealing triumph at Gabba.
Harbhajan said he was stumped at the accusation that he was trying to make monkey gestures towards the crowd.
"Some of the verbal attack which the crowd was directing at me was despicable. It crossed all limits of decency. But my word, as a professional cricketer, my entire focus was ensuring that we as a team did well in the match."
Harbhajan was also accused of spitting time and again apparently to taunt the hostile crowd.
"When you have saliva in your mouth what do you do?" said Harbhajan, barely able to hide his irritation.
One of the regulations of the ICC and Cricket Australia (CA) is to ensure that crowd at a stadium does not make any racial slur or abusive gesture towards cricketers on the field and those found guilty of doing so, are to be evacuated immediately, worse, they could even be banned from attending matches in those stadiums in future.
Clearly, this was not the case at the SCG last night while this supposed 'exchanges' were taking place between the crowd and Harbhajan.
"Probably it wasn't possible, or else the security would've had to clear the entire stadium," said Harbhajan laughingly.
Harbhajan, however, found support from the legendary Australian captain Allan Border who praised the bowler for his behaviour after he was baited by the SCG crowd.
"I was over that side of the ground and Harbhajan was copping a fair bit of stick from the crowd," Border said.
"I didn't notice any gestures at all and I thought he handled himself pretty well. It's not a big deal," he was quoted as saying by the 'Herald Sun'.
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