Former batsman Ashwell Prince has claimed that several South Africa batsman including himself were abused racially during the 2005 tour of Australia. Prince revealed that the team went on with the match regardless of what had transpired but when the management took up the issue with the ICC match referee, the players’ concerns were dismissed.

In a long Twitter thread “100% inspired by Michael Holding,” Prince called the South African system “broken,” claiming there had “never been any unity” for the 10 years he played for the national team.

“Some Proteas fans might have been shocked and disappointed by what they’ve read on social-media this week. Truth be told, well at least for the 10 years that I’d spent there, there had never been any UNITY! Australia 2005, a number of us encountered racist incidents on the boundary,” Prince tweeted.

“When we brought this to the attention of the leadership at lunch, we were told, “ah it’s only some people in the crowd, not the majority, let’s get back out there.” 2007 WC semifinal 60/6 absolutely blown away by Aus, who’s to blame, TRANSFORMATION. Absolutely 0 ownership.”

On the third day of the first Test match in Perth, South Africa had complained that some of their players were subjected to racial abuse and chanting. Prince, along with Makhaya Ntini and Garnett Kruger were called names and directed slurs at whereas Shaun Pollock and Justin Kemp were even heckled by the crowd.

“When we brought this to the attention of the team leadership at lunch, we were told, “ah it’s only some people in the crowd, not the majority, let’s get back out there,” Prince posted.

However, on the contrary Micky Arthur, who was South Africa’s head coach back then has revealed that the team in fact took the matter seriously.

We made a stand against it,” Arthur told ESPNCricinfo. “The team management went to Cricket Australia, who put extra security on the boundary. From my recollection, the team was upset about it as a whole. I don’t remember any player saying, ‘let’s just go back out there,’ flippantly. It affected us massively as a team.

“There is absolutely no room for racism whatsoever. Having been at Pakistan and Sri Lanka, whatever race, colour, religion everybody is, everybody is together.”