Racism in cricket

Recently there was a furore down under when a small section of the aussie crowd targetted few South African and Sri Lankan players with 'racist' chants during the VB series. Was the issue really as much as it was hyped to be ? I thought it was somewhat blown out of proportions, especially by the South African team management and i would think the reason for that would be the fact that they wanted some of the attention diverted from their continuous shambolic performances.

Racism can not be condoned and the guilty must be punished. One of the reasons given for the players taking it to so sensitively was because they have had a troubled past and these things rekindled those memories. (Seriously - are you joking ?? - D'oh). Crowds the world over in any sport always side with the home team. That is natural. The supporters try their best to egg their team towards glory and also try to put of the opposition with their boos and chantings. I think racism is a serious issue in a game like football (soccer) where hundreds and thousands make racist remarks in unison when a particular player gets the ball. But the issue in Australia was a group of at the most half a dozen people at a time who got 'high' and made some senseless remarks.

Am not saying that they are right, but at a professional level cant the players even take that much ?. The crowd along the boundary line will always be very voiceforous. Be it a test match or ODI or 20-20 or even a local district tournament. There will almost always be 'unparlimentary' remarks and hootings and all sorts of nonsense dished out. Many times i have seen players respond to that with a mock smile which could only infuriate the crowd further, but then in my opinion thats the best way to respond. If the players world over can take in the assh***s and mfk**s chants as being part of the mad crowd behaviour, why not this ?
If you were to stop all of these, would the match really be as fun as it normally is ? It would still be the same watching on tv, but for the players, crowd pressure is part of the package.

The South African team management went to the extent of threatening to pull out of future tours to Australia if the racist remarks did not stop. Back home, with a week before the return tour of Australia to South Africa kick starts, the South African players go to press and actually ask the crowd to target the aussies. ha ha ha - bunch of losers. Perhaps the crowd cant get in much racist remarks against the aussies, but whats the logic or sense in a player actually asking the crowd for support and that too in a sort of negative sense ?. Every one knows that the crowd will target the opposition players and now when a player from the home team comes out in the open and makes such statements i dont think the spirit would be great between the two teams. Its almost like, we were targetted down under and now its time to payback (probably with interest :P). Thats perfectly fine, then why complain when you were there ??

It all seems to be part of some mental game that the South Africans want to play and sadly they are too childish at that. Australia have lost the first two international games(at the time of writing) and could go on to lose the ODI series and even the Test series. But for me, South Africa have already lost it when Boucher went to press with his naive remarks and found support in none other than the so called captain fantastic - Greame Smith.

Thats a typical post by a hardcore aussie fan, aint it ;) :D ?