Former India cricketer Robin Uthappa tore into Michael Clarke after the former Australian captain uploaded a video of the infamous Slapgate incident involving S. Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh without prior permission. The 39-year-old went as far as saying that people who are not `brown-skinned` can `get away with` treating `people like crap`.
“That whole Slaggate thing that happened in the IPL. What the f*** man? How does someone get away with stuff like that?” Uthappa said on the Kim-Appa show with Jarrod Kimber. “Now, imagine we put up a clip of something that an Australian did that was offensive, that was kept under wraps for the respect of that whole situation, to save the respect of that situation, which is an impulsive, bad decision that a human being made…Now that you have gone and interviewed someone, and you have got access to the file, do you think you have the right to publish it, put that into the world, and make those two people go through that whole emotion, that raw emotion, 20 years later?”
The Slapgate incident remains one of the biggest controversies in IPL history. It occurred during the inaugural season in 2008, in a match between Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) and Mumbai Indians in Mohali, where the latter lost by 66 runs. As players greeted each other with customary handshakes, Harbhajan, in a fit of anger, slapped Sreesanth. However, the video was never released. Clarke obtained the footage from Lalit Modi, former IPL chairman, during an interview, and made it public.
“Where is your sense of sensitivity and empathy for other people?” Uthappa asked. “We all make mistakes, but are we going to keep putting it out there to make people go through the embarrassment of the wrong choices the person has made? For me, it’s guys who aren’t brown skinned who get away with it a lot more. Today, we are speaking about Sunny G having an opinion on what other countries speak about Indian cricket. But what about this? Imagine the human implications of this… You can’t treat people like crap just because it’ll get you more views,” he added.