Mike Procter still believes Harbhajan Singh made racial remark against Andrew Symonds

Mike Procter lives in Durban but he has not yet showed up at the Kingsmead.

“I’ll visit the match tomorrow,” says South Africa’s former chairman of selectors whose panel was disbanded by Cricket South Africa (CSA) after the team failed to beat England at home in a four-Test series earlier this year. He was not given any ‘answers’ by the CSA but he is not angry with the board. He had selected the Proteas’ team that famously beat Australia in Australia
in 2008.

“I don’t know why the selection panel was dropped. No one really answered my questions,” he would say. “We won the last Test against England comfortably. Given a two or three balls, we could have won another couple of Test matches. I can’t answer that question because I have never had an answer for the question myself,” Procter says in a chat with DNA.

But the former South African all-rounder does not think a selector’s job is a difficult one despite CSA’s policy of 40% reservation for coloured cricketers. “Being selector here is not difficult. The quota policy is perfectly fine. We have never had any problems implementing it.” What is, however, difficult is working with Graeme Smith. “It is not easy to work with Graeme,” he would admit. There were reports that Smith was responsible for his sacking but Procter would not comment on that.

Procter was the match referee of the infamous Sydney Test in 2008 after which he had imposed a three-Test ban on Harbhajan Singh for the infamous Monkeygate scandal. Subsequently, Appeals Commissioner John Hansen overturned his decision after an appeal by the Board of Control for Cricket in India but Procter thinks he was right.

“Everything that happened in Sydney in 2008 was very well recorded. It was unfortunate whatever happened then. I had a job to do and I did as I saw it fit even though the decision was overruled.” Does he still think that Harbhajan had called Andrew Symonds monkey? “I would not have made that decision if I did not think that, if I was not beyond reasonable doubt that he had made a racial remark against Symonds.” Procter would not, though, comment on the appeal commissioner’s ruling. “I would not rather comment on Hansen’s overruling.”

Procter thinks his relationship with the Indian team has been normal since then. “After the last Test match in that series, I went to the dressing room and said bye to the Indian players. We, the administrators, get along very well with the players,”  he says.

Procter feels India can still win the current series. “The pitch at Centurion helped the South African bowlers and they deserved to win after India did not bat very well in the first innings. I feel India can still bounce back. The Kingsmead pitch provides a lot of assistance to the bowlers. So it is going to be a good Test match. India have a reputation of not playing particularly well on the bouncy wickets. But they have got a very good coach, very good captain and a very good team. So there is not good reason to think that they can’t win the series.”