Harbhajan Singh was wronged during Monkeygate incident: Anil Kumble

Remembering the infamous Monkeygate scandal during India’s tour to Australia in 2007-08, former captain Anil Kumble said on Saturday that he and other Indian players believed that Harbhajan Singh was wrong.

Australia won the game by 122 runs. Other than Harbhajan’s bad umpiring decisions had also led the Indian team down.

“As a captain you’re generally tuned to take decisions on the field. Here I was faced with something, which was off the field, to take a decision in the larger interest of the game,” Kumble told Ravichandran Ashwin during latter’s YouTube show ‘DRSWithAsh’.

“And one of our players (Harbhajan Singh) was obviously banned for three matches because of a racist remark – that was what the pronouncement was and we appealed. I felt he was wronged.

“We had to obviously be together as a team but the challenge was that there was a lot of talk about the team wanting to come back at that point in time, and leave the tour and come back.

“Yes, you know, probably (people) would have accepted that the Indian team was wronged and that’s why they came back,” he added.

 “I think as a captain, or as a team, we had gone there to win the series. Unfortunately, with the first two results not going our way, the best result could have been a drawn series because two more Test matches remained and I just wanted to rally around the team. I was fortunate enough to have senior players, former captains, in the team,” he added.