Harbhajan Singh

Calcutta: Harbhajan Singh, under attack from the Australian media which has been pulling out all stops to vilify him, has found unlikely support from a former Australian captain.

The iconic Allan Border on Monday came out in support of the beleaguered off-spinner, saying that Harbhajan was actually being abused by the SCG crowd and that his behaviour under the situation was praiseworthy.

“I was over that side of the ground and Harbhajan was copping a fair bit of stick from the crowd,” Border was quoted as saying by the Herald Sun.

“I didn’t notice any gestures at all and I thought he (Harbhajan) handled himself pretty well. I’m not so sure how serious it is.”

The iconic former captain said it was a shame that a great century by the peerless Sachin Tendulkar was overshadowed by off-field incidents.

“It’s a shame that a great century by Sachin in his farewell tour of Australia was being overshadowed by a few bits of silliness in the outfield,” he was quoted as saying on Monday.

“It’s (the incident) not a big deal.”

Australian middle-order batsman Mike Hussey too said he hadn’t seen or heard anything, the report stated.

“I haven’t heard a single thing about it,” Hussey said.

He said too much was being made of things away from the game.

“I think the Australian and Indian public have had enough of all the controversy,” Hussey said.

“We just want to concentrate on the cricket.”

Meanwhile, a section of the media also reported that the off-spinner was himself the victim of racial and religious taunts.

The Daily Telegraph reported that some fans taunted Harbhajan by saying “show us your knot” and “get a haircut”, in reference to his being a Sikh.

The paper cited the example of two fans at the SCG who wore t-shirts inscribed with racial comments.

Andrew Wilson and Darren Jones were among a group of 20 fans from Newcastle wearing t-shirts carrying the words — ‘Monkey see… Monkey do’ — in reference to Harbhajan’s alleged abuse of Andrew Symonds in Sydney, the report said.