Need to know video: Singh's alleged racial slur

Cricket stood on the brink of what is being described as the biggest crisis since Bodyline last night after India suspended their tour to Australia over a three-match ban handed to Harbhajan Singh for alleged racist abuse.

The squad remained in Sydney, the venue of the acrimonious second Test match, which finished on Sunday, instead of heading to Canberra as management prepared a formal response. They had until 4pm today local time (5am GMT) to lodge an appeal amid fears that they may pull out of the tour halfway through the four-Test series. Niranjan Shah, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), called the Harbhajan verdict a “blatantly false and unfair slur”.

After a four-hour hearing, Mike Procter, the match referee, upheld a complaint that Harbhajan had described Andrew Symonds, the Australia all-rounder, as “a monkey”. Symonds was supported by Ricky Pon-ting, Adam Gilchrist, Michael Clarke and Matthew Hayden, his teammates. Sachin Tendulkar, who had been batting with Harbhajan at the time, backed his 27-year-old colleague.

Expert View

The reason the row has got out of hand is not because of racism. It is because too soft a line has been taken on the practice of sledging for far too long

Simon Barnes

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BACKGROUND

• Bucknor axed in Test cricket racism row

• Cricket split by 'Bollyline' tour

• India’s wounded national pride

• The slippery slope of sledging

BACKGROUND

• Procter haunted by controversy

• Controversy timeline

• Other cricketing controversies

• 'Bring them home' say majority of fans

BACKGROUND

• Australia finds little in which to glory

• World media split over Harbhajan affair

Multimedia

• Are Australia bad sports?

• Echoes of Bodyline series

• Patrick Kidd on Steve Bucknor decision

Related Links

• Procter haunted by controversy

• Other cricketing controversies

Procter took legal advice from Nigel Peters, a British barrister, before making his decision. He is thought to have been under pressure from Malcolm Speed, the chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC), the world governing body, to clamp down on alleged misbehaviour after finding Yuvraj Singh not guilty of dissent in the first Test.

Procter last night backed his latest ruling. “I am South African and I understand the word ‘racism’,” he said. “I have lived with it for much of my life and this was not a case of just taking the word of an Australian over an Indian. I stand by my decision and believe the process was fair.”

M. V. Sridhar, the India media manager, described Procter’s conclusion as “troublesome and hurtful”. He explained that the party stayed in Sydney to wait for the official ban documents from the ICC. Canberra is scheduled to host a two-day friendly starting on Thursday, but more eyes are on the third Test in Perth that starts a week tomorrow. The ban will not come into effect until after the appeal, but India are keen for the matter to be resolved before the series can resume. They have also claimed that Brad Hogg, the Australia bowler, called one of their team “a bastard”, a highly offensive term in India.

Confusion began to surround the future of the tour when Sharad Pawar, the president of the BCCI, said that his organisation, which will hold an emergency meeting today, was “giving serious thought to whether we should continue”. In a subsequent statement, Shah said: “The Indian board realises the game of cricket is paramount, but so, too, is the honour of the Indian team and . . . every Indian.”

Procter was also match referee at the Brit Oval in 2006, when Pakistan conceded the Test to England having been penalised for ball-tampering. Pakistan decided to press ahead with the tour, but the bad publicity harmed the image and integrity of the sport.

An impasse between Australia and India would have even greater repercussions, with one team by far the best in the world and the other the financial powerhouse.

The potential implications of the stand-off, which has been dubbed “Bollyline” in reference to the most famous of all sporting disputes in 1932-33, quickly became clear as, in Bombay and elsewhere, effigies of Procter and others associated with the furore were burnt in the streets.