Spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) famous Bay 13 have been warned to stop their racial taunts to the Indian players and spectators after multiple complaints about the first two days of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. On the first two days, there were some regular chants of “show us your visa”, which now has been led to a formal warning from Cricket Australia (CA) to spectators in the public area in the bottom tier of the MCG’s Great Southern Stand that if the chanting did not stop then the entire bay would be ejected from the ground.
As per reports of ESPNCricinfo, they have gathered the footage of the chants and they have handed it over to CA, who in turn passed the video on to Victoria Police and stadium management. Talking about the same, a CA spokesperson said, “Victoria Police and stadium security are monitoring the behavior of the crowd in that section of the stadium and have had several discussions with those fans in that bay to remind them about appropriate crowd behavior, as per venue entry terms and conditions.”
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Other chants from the bay, such as “Kohli’s a wanker”, were the cause of some complaints from other spectators but not deemed worthy of a warning. Similar chants about opposition players have been part of the MCG atmosphere for some years, famously including New Zealand’s Sir Richard Hadlee among others.
Crowd members are encouraged to report “anti-social behavior”, while CA’s ticket and entry conditions explicitly prohibit any sort of racist commenting, stating in part: “I will not engage in any conduct (whether through the use of language, gestures or otherwise) which is likely to offend, insult, humiliate, intimidate, threaten, disparage or vilify any other person (including any player, match official, other official or other patrons) on the basis of their gender, race, religion, culture, color, sexual orientation, descent or national or ethnic origin.
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It further adds, “If I fail to comply with this condition, I may be refused admission to, or evicted from, the Venue by any Authorised Person without refund or compensation of any kind; and I must deliver up any and all Tickets that I have in my possession at the request of an Authorised Person. In addition, I acknowledge that the failure to comply with this condition may result in the imposition of other sanctions (such as being banned from the Venue in the future) and possible further action including criminal prosecution.”
In the match so far, several players have also been booed including like the Indian skipper Virat Kohli and also the Australia allrounder Mitchell Marsh, who came into the side in place of Peter Handscomb. His teammate Travis Head stated his disappointment at the booing of Marsh on Boxing Day.
Crowds at the MCG so far for the Test have been 73,516 on day one, 36,524 on day two and 33,447 on day three, for a total of 143,487.
