Proteas suffered ''pre-meditated'' racial abuse by Aussie crowds

Dubai, Mar 22 (UNI) South African players were racially abused in Australia and the act was ''pre-meditated, cooordinated and calculated'' to get under the players' skin, revealed the report from India's Solicitor General Goolam Vahanvati into incidents of racist crowd behaviour Down Under.

The report which was presented on the second and the last day of the ICC Executive Board meeting, rubbished suggestions that the incidents were a result of drunken behaviour.

''Racial abuse of South African players took place during the tour of Australia and it would be wrong to attribute the abuse only to South African expatriates or explain it away as being the result of drunken behaviour,'' the report said.

''It was pre-meditated, co-ordinated and calculated to get under the players' skins,'' it added.

Asking the ICC to take a tough stand on the problem, the report, however, absolved Cricket Australia (CA) and said its approach following the incidents was appropriate.

Following this the Board appointed a three-man committee to provide recommendations to the next meeting on April 30.

This committee will comprise ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed, CA Chief Executive James Sutherland and United Cricket Board of South Africa Chief Executive Gerald Majola.

The two-day meeting concluded yesterday after several important decisions, including the decision to scrap the super-sub experiment in ODI's were taken.

The meting was chaired by ICC President Ehsan Mani.

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