Richardson, for his part, agreed that while Stoinis had been “more angry than I have ever seen him” when the abuse occurred, it was “really out of character”.

The incident took place in Melborune Stars’ BBL game against Melbourne Renegades on January 4. Stoinis accepted the charge against him, copped a fine of AUD 7,500 and apologised to Richardson. But, the all-rounder, who slammed a record 147* for Stars on January 12, said the mistake had been on his mind during his record-breaking innings and he was keen to make amends for his behaviour.

“It doesn’t sit well with my character and who I want to be,” he told reporters after the match. “I’ve spoken to Kane, but … it’s not the type of person I am and it’s not who I want to be. I understand it’s out of line. It’s not how I was raised. I’m not proud of it but I’ve just got to cop that on the chin and roll with it now.”

Marcus Stoinis hogged the strike to a near-unprecedented extent during his record-breaking century.https://t.co/nN2Ob81OBe

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) January 12, 2020

Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, where he is with the ODI squad for the three-match tour of India, Richardson said he had received an apology from Stoinis. “Yeah, a little WhatsApp the morning after, but not a whole lot of conversation about it,” he said. “He realised he made a mistake. I could just tell by his body language for the rest of his innings that night that he knew he made a mistake.

“I didn’t need an apology for myself, he didn’t offend me. It’s more what he said that offended so many people. It was more just his actions and everyone’s actions going forward, that that kind of thing can’t happen again.”

Since the Newlands scandal, Australia have pledged to act against bad behaviour from players, with homophobic abuse being dealt with especially strongly. In November, James Pattinson too was suspended for an alleged homophobic slur.

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Stoinis, meanwhile, insisted he would show with his actions that he had learnt from the incident. “There’s absolutely no excuses,” he said. “He’s a good mate and over the last couple of games we’ve played he’s wound me up a few times and it’s absolutely no excuse to use words like that. That’s what he was trying to do, he was trying to get a reaction out of me. Unfortunately I took that bait and went too far.”

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“We always talk, we’re both competitors,” Richardson added. “It was just a bit of harmless banter about what was going on on the field and the way he goes about it. I always want to have a chat to him about that. It was just harmless cricket chat. For some reason, he reacted the way he did. You would have to ask him why, it was really out of character. He looked more angry than I have ever seen him. I’m not sure what he was thinking. The learning has to be that it never happens again.”