Recently Ponting had come out and spoken how the BCCI might have twisted its arm in resolving the MONKEYGATE scandal, an on field incident which ruined a potential cricketing career of none other than Andrew Symonds. Circa 2007, India went to tour Australia. The tour was ear-marked as the clash between the two greatest sides at that point of time. The matches had all the ingredients of movie. Some nerve crackling cricket, on field slathering and plenty of controversies. The most important of those had to be the MONKEYGATE scandal.
The scandal started when the Aussies who are known exponents of verbal sledging got pricked by a thorn called Harbhajan Singh. One of their key players Symonds was allegedly called a MONKEY by Bhajji. This chatter was even picked on the stump microphone and threatened to turn into a nasty incident, when Sachin and few other Australian players intervened and cooled things down. Anyways the damage had been done. The incident was reported to the match referee and he called both the parties into question. Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting were called as witnesses. As expected both supported their team mate. In the end it was announced that Bhajji has just spoken TERI MA KI which is an abuse in Hindi and Symonds misunderstood as MONKEY.
Symonds always had felt that the Indians went unpunished and Cricket Australia had not supported him for his cause. The trust factor in the team and the board was lost. Symonds was never the same cricketer again. This was a player who could turn matches single handedly with his batting, bowling or electrifying fielding. But he got struck in the heat of the moment and unable to come out of this incident lost his form and confidence. He was never the same cricketer again. CA lost one of its prime assets. In the background it is alleged that the ever mighty BCCI did its share of muscle flexing and CA had to bow down to its needs. And poor Symonds was made the scapegoat. Cricket was poorer after this incident.
