The 2008 Sydney Test match between India and Australia is known for all the wrong reasons.
Former India spinner Harbhajan Singh on Saturday (January 19) revisited the controversial 2008 Sydney Test, alleging that he was insulted based on his religion.
Apart from a number of umpiring errors that probably cost India the match, the 2008 Sydney Test is also famous for the 'MonkeyGate' scandal involving Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds.
During the Test match, a verbal fight had broken out between Symonds and Harbhajan, which led to the controversy as the former alleged that the Turbanator passed a racist remark at him.
For the altercation with Symonds, Harbhajan was handed a three-match suspension by referee Mike Procter although the charges were downgraded on 29 January 2008 to the lesser charge of using abusive language and the ban was lifted.
Speaking on Boria Majumdar's show 'Backstage with Boria', Harbhajan said, “Obviously I was disturbed, I couldn’t understand why it was happening. Why was there so much of... for something that hadn’t happened. They had six or seven witnesses for something that I had not spoken. No one had heard it and yet it was blown out of proportion.”
“The things that were said to me (while being) on the ground, ‘you have testicles on your head’, to hear such an insult towards my religion was the most difficult thing for me. I didn’t open my mouth then because if I did so, it would have resulted in more controversies," he added.
Harbhajan also thanked his Indian teammates and management for standing by his side during that tough phase of his career.
“Only I knew how I used to spend time in my room during that difficult phase. I never thought of having a word with the players or the management because they were anyways with me. In the whole incident, they were backing me but since my stress level had already reached beyond a certain level I did not want to stress anyone else.
"So, I had to deal with whatever way I could and I am glad that I could and I could go out there and play and win a few games for Team India in Australia," concluded Harbhajan.