Four Indian cricket fans are to face charges of racially abusing the Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds after allegedly taunting him with monkey gestures, police in Mumbai said yesterday.The four were ejected from Wednesday's one-day international (ODI), which India narrowly won, after officials showed police pictures of three men and one woman making racist gestures towards Symonds, who was the only black player in the Australian team.The fans were charged with "misbehaviour and harassment" and were freed on bail pending a court appearance.Australian newspapers also carried photographs of the Mumbai crowd, clearly showing spectators making offensive gestures.
The seven-match ODI series, which Australia won 4-2, was marred by allegations of racial comments aimed at the Australians.Symonds, who was the outstanding batsman of the series, had complained that fans in the western city of Vadodara earlier this month had been shouting monkey chants.The city's police chief claimed the supporters were praying to the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman.Symonds has also run the wrath of the Indian cricket crowds after heated exchanges with the bowlers Harbhajan Singh and Shantakumaran Sreesanth.Both Indian and Australian cricket officials were quick to condemn the Mumbai spectators yesterday."There is no place for racism in cricket either on or off the field," Sharad Pawar, India's top cricket official, and Creagh O'Connor, his Australian counterpart, said in a joint statement. "All cricket nations have to be on guard to ensure that the fun does not cross the boundary into unacceptable behaviour."Mukul Kesavan, one of India's best-known cricket writers, said he was surprised that Indian newspapers were not "exactly jumping to denounce" the racism."A cricketing crowd in India is a seething mass of diverse prejudices and a low-wattage racism is one of them. You did not see it with the West Indian cricketers because Indians always admired them a bit like Brazil and football. Symonds is seen as part of an abrasive, white team. But it is still deplorable racism.".
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