by Greg Hawke

Created on: January 16, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Who would've thought monkeys would throw world cricket into turmoil? but thank the lord that common sense and good old fashioned face to face mediation by two sporting captains, has finally taken the place of trifling political correctness in this much anticipated test series against the Indians this summer.

I know it's an old cliche, but I firmly believe that this old chestnut has significant merit ... "what goes on in the middle, stays in the middle". Unless of course blatantly serious acts of racism, or deeply personal and "proven" attacks on players occur, then, by all means let's get the authorities involved.

But seriously, I realize we live in a world where sportsmen and women are idolized, analyzed and scrutinized like never before, but why should this trivial allegation of one player calling another player a "monkey", take the focus completely away from the top two cricketing nations playing a hard fought test series? and lets not forget the remarkable achievement of this group of best mates called the "Australian Cricket Team" keeping in tact the run of consecutive test match wins to 16, which equals the record of the best ever test match winning streak by any team in the world, of which was previously held by another Australian Cricket team, led by Steve Waugh earlier this century.

I'm not here to say the term "Monkey" is, or isn't a racist term, or is, or isn't simply a derogatory term when directed at somebody like Andrew Symonds. But surely worst things have been said and dismissed without drama, in the heat of battle during a test match between two super-powers of world cricket...? if in fact, Harbajan said it at all.

I'll concede that this form of verbal exchange could be interpreted as offensive to some and not others. I also realize that Ricky Ponting, and in fact all international cricket captains are now instructed to report incidents like this. And while rules maybe rules, if Andrew Symonds had brushed this alleged comment off like he would if a "friend" said it to him, as he is recently quoted as saying in an article by "The Sunday Telegraph", or if Ricky Ponting had exercised his right as a human to "let one go through to the keeper" if he truly believed the incident didn't deserve to be put up in lights and before the cricket authorities, then would any of us regular "punters" be any the wiser to what went on in the middle that day...? I don't think so. Then if this was the case, I think we would all be talking about the fantastic sporting achievements that this top of the heap test series has been offering.

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