NORTH STAND AND RACIST?? YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!

There has been a lot of publicity given to the fact that Andrew Symonds was subject to racism during the course of the last 3 ODI's in the recently concluded Future Cup. And more attention has been focussed on the North Stand at the Wankhede in Bombay. I personally feel all this is a load of rubbish. The North Stand in Wankhede is one of the best stands to be watching a match in the country. Apart from Bombay, I have seen matches in Kolkata,Pune and Bangalore, and i can safely say that the most knowledgeable,sporting and fun loving crowd in the country can be found in the North Stand. A major chunk of the spectators in the North stand consists of young professionals and students, the last thing one can expect from them is being racist. It is true that they give the opposition a tough time with the kind of chants they come up with(which is all in good humour), but they also appreciate a good perfomance when they see one. Now Australia of all countries has no moral right to complain about racism.

First of all calling somebody a monkey is not racism by any stretch of the imagination. So this not racism. What is even more ironic is this accusation is coming from Australia- a country where visiting teams are given the toughest times by spectators. The Aussies have deprived themselves in the past of watching Murali in action because of the way they treated him. The Proteas would also vouch for the fact that the spectators are racist(to put it in mild terms). They have been at the receiving end of a lot of racial slurs during all of their tours down under.

The 4 spectators who were ejected from the North Stand can't be seen as its representatives(a few rotten apples). The same North Stand gave a standing ovation to Mark Waugh in the 96 world cup game for his splendid 126. Nobody went beserk(unlike other stadiums) when we lost test matches to South Africa, Australia and England. I have to keep on reiterating that they aren't sore losers.

So before anybody goes ahead and brands the North Stand as being racist, please get your facts right and don't give undue inportance to all of this nonsense.