South African players subject to racial taunts from Bangladeshi crowd; arrests made

Bangladeshi fans cheer for their team on Day 2 of the 1^st Test against South Africa

Security personnel arrested a Bangladeshi spectator for allegedly racially abusing South Africa players during the second day of the first Test against Bangladesh at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium on Wednesday. It is reported that the rest in the group managed to escape.

In what is thought to be a separate incident, two boys aged around 10-11 were detained for making racial comments but were released two hours later because they were minors.

The South Africa players complained during an interval to match referee Chris Broad, who passed the complaint on to the Bangladesh Cricket Board.

"The match referee told us some spectators, stationed under the giant screen, hurled some abusive language to the South African players who are fielding in that arena," BCB security consultant Hossain Imam said.

"According to him, the comment they made is strictly prohibited in the game of cricket, and he told us to take the necessary step. We immediately visited the area and arrested one person. There was a group there. The rest managed to flee."

Incident handled by venue security: South Africa

BCB's security committee member-secretary Mohammad Ali said. "They were two minors, around 10 or 11-year olds. They saw one or two South Africa players and made some racial comments. We were informed by the match referee and when I went there, the police had already detained them.

“But we couldn't really arrest them or take any more action. They were crying and admitted that they did abuse the players."

After the incident was made known, there were several announcements made by the stadium’s PA system reading out the ICC's anti-racism code.

A South Africa team spokesperson said that the incident had been "handled by the match officials and venue security".