Mumbai, INDIA: Australian cricketer Michael Clarke (R) share a light moment with teammate Andrew Symonds during a practice session in Mumbai, 03 November 2006. Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images

In the midst of yet another heated series between two of cricket's fiercest rivals, former Australian captain Michael Clarke has resurfaced the most divisive moment in the history between the two nations.

Australian enforcer Andrew Symonds was in the field on day three of the Sydney Test in 2007-08 Border-Gavasker series when he accused Harbhajan Singh of calling him a monkey.

Speaking in Kolkata ahead of his autobiography release, Clarke mentioned he believed Symonds took things too far and it's an incident that he believes could have been avoided.

“I was very close to Andrew (Symonds) at the time,” Clarke said. “I asked him if he was racially vilified. It wasn’t about being racially abused for Andrew but a lot of other things."

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly was seated with Clarke in Kolkata and said he believed the book wouldn't tell the whole story.

“I can guarantee you, the ‘Monkeygate’ chapter will not have its true picture in the book,” Ganguly said, “Because only a ‘Sardarji’ (leader) will know what Harbhajan tried to say."

A host of Australia players, including Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist, were summoned to give evidence to match referee Mike Proctor about the incident, which result in Singh being banned for three Tests.

Indian great Sachin Tendulkar, who was batting with Singh at the time, testified that Harbhajan had actually said ‘Teri maa ki’ (a northern Indian expression which means ‘Your mother’).

Following the appeal, Singh's penalty was downgraded to a 50% fine of match payments as it was deemed his comment was abusive language as opposed to a racial comment.

In his autobiography, Clarke stated that Symonds wasn't particularly offended by Harbhajan's comments, instead, he was more annoyed that the Indian cricket team had been getting away with things others wouldn't.

“After the first hearing, I go to Symmo and say, ‘Mate, you haven’t been offended by this at all. This doesn’t bother you.’

“He says, ‘But I’m sick and tired of them getting away with it. We never get away with anything, but they do.’

“When it comes to suffering from racism in historic terms, we’re not going to be able to grab the high ground from India. So it would have been best to cop it and move on, rather than stage a fight we were never going to win," Clarke said.