Even as authorities at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) are investigating reports from the Indian team that pace bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj were subjected to racist comments, they have received another complaint from an Indian fan who alleged that a security officer on duty at the SCG told him to “go back to where you belong”.
Krishna Kumar, who lives in Sydney, has lodged an official complaint saying he was targeted after attempting to bring four banners into the ground on the fifth day on Monday. The banners had anti-racism messages like “Rivalry is good, racism is not”, “No racism mate”, “Brown inclusion matters” and “Cricket Australia — more diversity please”.
A report in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) said that Kumar was stopped at the gate for not being allowed to take one of his banners which the security believed was bigger in size. He then asked he wanted to speak to a security supervisor.
A security official then asked him to leave, he said.
“He told me, ‘If you need to address this matter, go back to where you belong’. It was a very small banner. I made it out of my kids’ paper roll,” Kumar was quoted as saying by SMH.
Kumar was asked to leave the banners in his car.
“After having to empty out his bag in a lengthy check and being shouted at aggressively by the mid-ranking security staffer as he was ordered through a metal detector, Mr Kumar reported that, when he finally took his seat in Bay 11 of the Victor Trumper Stand, more security was added to the area,” said the report. “They included a female guard of Indian origin to monitor, he believes, if he was ‘using any other language’.”