Legendary India batsman Sachin Tendulkar has released his autobiography – Playing It My Way – on Wednesday. In his book he has revealed many hidden stories of his cricketing career and has finally mentioned about the anger, frustration and sense of betrayal he felt during the ‘Monkeygate scandal’, one of the biggest controversies in India cricket history.

In his autobiography, he has revealed that the Australia tour of Indian cricket team was the most deserted tour in 2007-08 after Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh was banned by match referee Mike Procter for three games.

The Monkeygate controversy was the infamous incident during the second Test match in Sydney where the hosts complained that the former Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds has been abused by Singh and he allegedly called him a monkey.

Tendulkar writes in the book, that the former Indian cricketer-captain and spinner Anil Kumble was the caption of Indian cricket team during the tour and he took the lead in deciding that the team would boycott the tour if Bhajji will be ban, knowing the fact that this action of boycott may harm the team and the ICC may ban the Indian cricket team.

Harbhajan is a very patience man but Symonds was insistently trying to provoke Bhajji, but finally the patience broke out. Sachin was trying to calm down the things. He walked to Bhajji and heard him saying few abusive words which are genernally used by the north Indians inorder to show or express his/ her anger. This was the incident which created a tough situation and almost caused the environment that the tour to be called off, cricket batting legend wrote in his book.

Explaining the whole incident, Tendulkar said that he thought the matter had ended with the ban of Bhajji but he was shocked that hosts had lodged formal complaint alleging that Bhajji had called a ‘monkey’ to Symonds.

Through his book master blaster also took a dig at the umpires of the second test match and Australian player by calling it as ‘unsportsmanlike’. Tendulkar very clearly stated that the decision given by the umpire Buckner was very shocking in which Mr Wall of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid was given caught-behind for 38.

An Australian former cricketer-captain, Ricky Ponting has steered clear of the Monkeygate scandal, by expressing his side. On Thursday, Ponting stated that he had already spoken a lot regarding the matter to media and now he don’t need to express his point as its has passed many years and Sachin is given his side. Ponting also said that he has done all he could do for the betterment of the game.

Australian cricketers has lodged a complained regarding this issue was the most surprising thing for Tendulkar. He still believes that the issue would have not been blown so out if both the captions of the team, Kumble and Ponting had discussed it together, before complaining to the match referee.

The autobiography of Tendulkar which reveals many hidden stories has cognizable to record sale.

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