Thornlie team Captain Asanga Jayagoda (AJ) outlined that prior to the start of the game, he brought down a portable speaker to the game, to play music to lift his teams spirits (following some recent losses).
He discussed and alleged there were racial comments from JPCC regarding the music and how this made TCC's players and spectators uncomfortable. The witness (Menaka) alleged that Michael Gray (MG) went into their changerooms with the speaker and disconnected it. She advised them that that sort of behaviour wasn't necessary.
As the game progressed with Thornlie bowling, they advised that there were several debatable umpiring decisions which went against them. Asanga advised his played that they should expect this sort of behaviour from the opposition (JPCC). The incident came to a head when a runout wasn't given out. Asanga Jayagoda alleged that Michael Gray threatened him with a stump. This caused both teams to be tense and player behaviour beyond this point wasn't acceptable (yelling at each other, abusive language being used). This resulted in JPCC captain Ron Black (RB) taking his players off the field, as he didn't believe that staying on the field was any longer an option. Ron Black believed that players would begin to assault each other.
TCC players remained on the ground for 40 minutes, after JPCC left the field. TCC advised that, although there players were shaken by the incident, they wanted to continue the match. After this point David King contacted Mario Baeli over the phone, to attempt to diffuse the situation. We thanked TCC for their submissions and asked them to leave the room.