Harbhajan cleared for his racist comment

Harbhajan Singh has been cleared of making racist comments and, as a result, has had his three-match ban rescinded, according to the Board of Control for Cricket India (BCCI).

Harbhajan had been accused of calling Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds a "monkey" during the second Test in Sydney.

However, after an appeal at the Federal Court in Adelaide the charge was downgraded to one of using abusive language and Harbhajan has been fined 50% of his match fee as a lesser punishment.

VR Manohar, Harbhajan's counsel, said: "BCCI made it clear during the hearing that racism charge was like laying blame on the board and the nation, and should be dropped."

Match umpires Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor had brought the charge against Harbhajan under section 3.3 of the ICC code of conduct after receiving a complaint from Australia captain Ricky Ponting on day three of the Sydney Test when the spinner was batting alongside Sachin Tendulkar.

Harbhajan was ushered into the Federal Court on Tuesday morning without making any comment to the media, and was followed in soon after by Tendulkar.

The Australian team members had arrived earlier, while Ponting left the hearing shortly after noon, again without making any comment.

Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young is keen for both sides to put the unsavoury incident behind them and concentrate on the triangular series involving the two teams and Sri Lanka looming on the horizon.

"All parties will move on with the cricket," Young said. "The game is the important thing."

BCCI zeroes in on Gary Kirsten for coach

Gary Kirsten, the former South African opener, is the surprise front-runner to be India's next coach. While the Indian board said Kirsten was interviewed by the coach selection committee on Monday and a formal announcement on the new coach would be made in a week's time, senior officials were saying off the record that the appointment was a formality."It has been finalised," a senior board official told Cricinfo. "We just need some time to complete the formalities."


Kirsten was interviewed in Delhi by the coach selection committee, comprising former captains Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and S Venkataraghavan, BCCI joint secretary MP Pandove, treasurer N Srinivasan and secretary Niranjan Shah. Anil Kumble, India's test captain, was also present at the meeting. The committee had decided to expedite the process with the intention of appointing a coach before the tour of Australia next month.


Among those who have applied to succeed Chappell are Chandrakant Pandit, the former Indian wicketkeeper and Maharashtra coach, Richard Done, former head of the Queensland Academy of Excellence, Leicestershire coach Tim Boon, Kepler Wessels, the former Australia and South Africa international, Terry Oliver, Queensland's coach, Dave Nosworthy, coach of Canterbury, and former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe. Unlike the media frenzy that surrounded the applications of Graham Ford and John Emburey earlier this year, Kirsten's interview was kept very low profile.

After retirement in March 2004, Kirsten embarked on a coaching career, taking up an assignment as Cricket South Africa's high performance manager, after which he set up the privately-run Gary Kirsten Cricket Academy.

Statistics:

Kirsten, 40, was one of South Africa's leading batsmen, playing 101 Tests scoring 7289 runs at 45.27 and playing 185 ODIs scoring 6798 runs at 40.95.