India stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane has finally presented his views on the racism row, which was witnessed in the third and penultimate Test between the Indian team and Australia, saying 'what happened in Sydney was really sad' and the team had to take a stand.
Rahane, while speaking to Sports Today, revealed why he turned down the on-field umpires' offer to leave the field midway after Mohammed Siraj was subjected to racial abuse by the crowd in Sydney.
Six individuals from the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) crowd were forced to leave the stadium after they misbehaved with Indian cricketer Mohammed Siraj on Day 4, hence repeating the behavior from Day 3 of the Sydney Test.
The seriously insulting remarks directed at the Indian cricketers, Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah, on day 3 had only found the perpetrators officially warned. But after the play was halted for 10 minutes on Day 4, as Siraj told his captain Ajinkya Rahane about the slurs, the misbehaving fringe was identified and thrown out of the ground.
"What happened in Sydney was really sad. With Siraj and a couple of others. We had to take a stand. Yes, I said that we are not going out of the field, we are here to play cricket," Ajinkya Rahane told Boria Majumdar in an exclusive interview with Sports Today.
"At the same time, we respect our players so if you can actually take those guys out who used bad language. We are here and we can start the game. We didn't want to lose that momentum. At the same time, we respect our players and I am always there for my players," Rahane added.
Following the repeated misbehaviour by the SCG crowd on Day 3 and Day 4, Cricket Australia had issued a strong statement against discrimination and hold that there's no place in cricket for racism.