What had been a fine day for India and Harbhajan Singh on the third day of the second Test match against Australia was marred when the off spinner was reported by the umpires to Mike Procter, the match referee, for alleged racial vilification of Andrew Symonds.

If found guilty of a Level 3 offence under the ICC’s code of conduct – the hearing was scheduled to take place after the end of play on the fourth day – Harbhajan faces a ban of between two and four Test matches. That would rule him out of the rest of the four-match series.

Harbhajan had reached his third Test fifty when the altercation with Symonds took place. The Australia all-rounder said something to Harbhajan, who is alleged to have retorted by calling Symonds “a monkey”. It is not clear whether Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor, the umpires, heard the exchange, but they were seen to talk to the two players as well as Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain.

Although Sachin Tendulkar, who was batting with Harbhajan at the time, tried to play down the incident as being humorous, it is understood that Ponting and the Australians were keen for the umpires to report the matter to Procter. None of the officials would comment on the case.

Ponting and Harbhajan have been feuding since 1998, when the Australian was stumped off his bowling in a one-day match in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates. Harbhajan pointed him towards the dressing-room, whereupon Ponting reacted angrily. Both players were fined by the match referee.

Ponting has suffered seven failures at the hands of Harbhajan in the eight Tests they have opposed each other, including once in this series. In the celebrated 2001 series, which India won 2-1 at home, Harbhajan got Ponting out in all five of the innings he bowled to him, three times for ducks. Ponting scored only 17 runs in total.

Ponting has not taken kindly to taunts from the off spinner in the media that he is effectively his “bunny”. Asked why he has enjoyed such notable success against a batsman who has made a mountain of runs against other Test bowlers, Harbhajan said: “He hasn’t batted for long enough against me, so I don’t know.”

The Australians have expressed their dislike for the combative off spinner, who is not afraid to “sledge” them and was prominent in the rancorous one-day series between the countries in India last autumn. Ponting, who was riled by Harbhajan’s comments that Australia’s sledging was “personal and vulgar”, claimed that Harbhajan “has got plenty to say on the field, but whenever anyone says anything back to him he is the first to run away”.

Symonds, who has a West Indian parent, became a target for India fans during that series in October, notably in the match in Vadodara when a few dozen imitated monkey noises and actions when he was fielding on the boundary near them. The Australians complained to the Indian authorities, but in the Twenty20 match that followed in Bombay, large sections of the crowd, having heard of the official complaint, repeatedly aimed similar abuse at Symonds.

The Australia players’ stand against Harbhajan yesterday appears to owe much to this incident and to the bad blood between them and the feisty India spinner.