TWO former Kent players find themselves embroiled in the Test match race row that seems certain to change the face of cricket worldwide.

Ex-Kent captain turned ICC Emirates Elite Panel umpire Mark Benson was in joint-charge of last week’s second Test between Australia and India in Sydney that ended in a narrow win for hosts only to and an international incident since following allegations that former Kent all-rounder and Aussie star Andrew Symonds was racially abused.

Birmingham-born Symonds complained that Indian and Surrey off-spinner Harbhajan Singh dubbed him ‘a monkey’ during an on-field spat in the heated five-day game.

Symonds, a feisty and combative player who made 49 first-class appearances for Kent between 1999 and 2004, reported the alleged abuse to his skipper Ricky Ponting, who made the incident known to match officials Benson and Steve Bucknor.

ICC match referee Mike Procter acted swiftly to hand a three-match ban Harbhajan, who took astounding figures of 11 for 91 to bowl Surrey to a two-day championship win over Kent in Canterbury last August, but Procter’s move led to a threat by India officials to abandon the remainder of the Australia tour.

Though high-level meetings involving ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed and officials from both India and Australia are ongoing in an effort to keep the series alive, the repercussions of fallout seem certain to rumble on.

Bucknor, 61, the world’s most experienced umpire having stood in 120 Tests and 167 one-day internationals, has been replaced for the scheduled third Test in Perth after an official request from India, while effigies of Bucknor and Benson were burnt on the streets by fans in Kanpur and Vadodra complaining that both officials had suffered poor games in Sydney.

Symonds, Harbhajan and both umpires have remained tight-lipped since the Sydney Test ended, but the shameful events have at least led to calls for the players from both sides to take the lead by cleaning-up of the game’s tarnished image with improved behaviour from here on.