Former Australian Captain Ricky Ponting, who won the World Cup twice for the Australian team, has called the '2008 Monkeygate scandal' the worst point of his captaincy career. Ricky Ponting has admitted that he was not in control at the time of the scandal. The episode took place during the second Test in Sydney between the Indian team's senior spinner Harbhajan Singh and Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds accusing Harbhajan of making racist remarks on Symonds.
Ricky Ponting, who was the captain of the team at the time, said, "Monkeygate has been potentially the worst point of my captaincy career. It was difficult for me to lose the 2005 Ashes series and was in full control at the time, but when whatever happened between Bhajji and Symonds in 2008 Monkeygate dispute, I was not in complete control at that time." Actually, Harbhajan Singh called Symonds a monkey. For this, he was banned for 3 Test matches.
Australia captain Ricky Ponting, who won 48 matches in 77 Tests and 164 matches in 228 ODIs, has said that it (Monkeygate) was a bad moment, also because it lasted so long. He has said, "I remember that I came out of the ground after the Adelaide Test match and talked to the Cricket Australia officials about the case, because the case was to be heard after the Adelaide Test match."
The incident caused a lot of bitterness between the Indian and Australian teams. India had threatened to cancel the tour before the ICC intervened. The Australian great batsman has said, "We were saddened by the result of the Monkeygate controversy. This fact came from the way we played cricket for the next Test match, probably the most disappointing thing. We played in Perth and thought we would win, but we lost and then things got worse after that."
