Indian fast bowler Mohammed Siraj made the headlines ahead of the Border Gavaskar Trophy series for a good reason. During the warm-up game between India and Australia A, Siraj won the spirit of cricket for his compassionate act to Australia’s all-rounder Cameron Green.
During the game, when Green bowled a straight delivery to Jasprit Bumrah, the latter tried to smack the ball down the ground. As it turned it out, the ball travelled straight and hit Green’s forehead.
As the all-rounder fell to the ground, Siraj immediately threw away his bat and was the first person to check on the young all-rounder whether he was alright. The BCCI posted a picture on Twitter platform where Green can be seen on his knees besides Siraj who rushed to check on him.
Siraj won billions of hearts for his gesture towards Australian. Green was ruled out of the rest of the warm-up game. Green returned to make his Test debut for Australia in the Adelaide pink-ball affair. Australia won the first Test and took a 1-0 lead in the series.
Australian fans abuse Indian pacers
India bounced back on track by winning the second Test and levelled the series at 1-1. Siraj who made a Test debut at the MCG took 5 wickets to his name and had a dream debut.
However, during the third Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the 26-year-old pacer was treated badly a crowd member at the SCG stands. Apart from Siraj even Jasprit Bumrah was racially abused by a spectator.
The incident came to light after India’s stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane and veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin reported the incident to the on-field umpires.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India lodged a complaint over racial abuse of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. Both the pacers were harshly treated during the second and third day of the SCG Test.
Security personnel remove spectators
The racial attack didn’t stop as it continued again on the fourth day of the SCG Test. The pacer Siraj went up to the umpire and had complained about yet another incident of ‘racial abuse’. India’s interim captain Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mayank Agarwal also joined the discussion while having a chat with on-field umpire Paul Reiffel.
After their complaint, a certain group of fans were forced to leave the stadium on Sunday. The game was interrupted for close to 10 minutes after the 26-year-old pacer Siraj walked up from the square-leg and complained of racial abuses at the end of the 86th over of Australia’s second innings.
If reports doing the rounds are to be believed, Siraj was harshly called ‘Brown dog’ by shameless Australian spectators. Unlike the previous incident, Siraj had directly pointed towards the direction of the spectators from which racial slurs came from.
The umpires had a lengthy discussion about this and soon after that, the security personnel were seen asking a group of 4 men to leave the stadium. After 4 men left the stadium, a couple of others were also asked to leave the SCG stadium. Cricket Australia issued an apology for this act.
