RACISM IS LIKE A CANCER... AND ENGLISH CRICKET MUST NOT LOOK THE OTHER WAY
MiCHAeL Holding did many great things with the ball during his career, but the way he is speaking about racism in cricket and the importance of Black Lives Matter is a reminder that he is a great man in other ways, too.
the segment we did on sky sports yesterday morning while we waited for the southampton weather to behave itself was incredibly powerful and i hope the whole of cricket takes note.
First, there was the emotion and conviction of ebony rainfordBrent, who has been through it all herself and brilliantly conveyed some of the painful experiences she has endured down the years.
then there was Holding (below), who spoke calmly and intelligently about the cancer that is racism. He’s such a passionate man and it was a privilege to be standing next to him while we carried on the conversation in front of the cameras at the Ageas Bowl.
As i mentioned, i’ve endured a bit of abuse myself down the years. Having an english mum and an indian dad and being called Hussain meant i copped it a bit from both sides. i’ve been called a Paki and i’ve been called saddam and told to ‘eff off’ back to iraq.
But i’m half-white, middle-class and public school educated so i’ve got off lightly. that’s all small fry compared with what ebony and Mikey and other members of the African- Caribbean community have been through.
some viewers tuning into the discussion yesterday might have thought, ‘Oh, not this subject again. Football’s done it, Formula One’s done it, now cricket’s doing it.’
But my view is that there is no better time to discuss Black Lives Matter than at the start of a test series between england and West indies, given all the history between them and the role Learie Constantine played in the founding of the Wisden trophy in 1963.
i know some people have been put off by what they regard as the politicisation of the BLM movement, but for me it was a nobrainer. the subject and message is too important not to wear a badge in support of it.
Like many people, i was watching the news when the footage appeared of George Floyd being suffocated by a policeman in Minnesota. i couldn’t watch. But in the end i forced myself to. We’ve all looked away for too long. the key now is not to let this subject disappear into the ether once the series is over. Let’s not get all excited now because BLM is in the news, then allow it to slip from our minds. Let’s use this as a chance to reflect on what’s been happening and on why the english game has been so slow to address the question of racism.
it can be easy to look the other way. We’ve all been in situations where we’ve turned a deaf ear to the occasional comment and passed it off as banter. And it can be easy for english cricket to say it’s all Ok when Jofra Archer bowls the super over that wins the World Cup.
it’s true that a young black boy or girl will have watched Archer that day at Lord’s and been inspired by him, but we need to be honest and say that it is not in itself the solution. Archer learned his cricket in Barbados. england has been his finishing school.
But real change has to be deeper than that. i’m talking about the Under 11 regional trial, where only one black kid turns up, and the coach decides the safer option is to go with the middle-class white lad whose brother maybe played for the team a few years earlier. Diversity starts right at the bottom of the game.
there are no simple answers, but i do know that once the AfricanCaribbean community in this country feels cricket is a game for them, they will come back to it.
i remember the indoor nets at ilford that my dad used to run. there was always one lane used by the local Caribbean community, who would turn up and give us grief because Viv richards had just battered england’s bowlers or West indies had just completed another ‘blackwash’.
they turned up because they were able to hold their heads high thanks to the feats of the West indies side. As West indies have gone into decline and black cricketers have started to drop away from the england side, those lads have stopped turning up. it’s sad. ebony has done some exceptional work in south London, where she’s seen how much talent there is, if only it can be harnessed in the right way. But we must not now just applaud her and move on. this shouldn’t be ebony’s problem — it should be our problem. We all need to pull together. Cricket — and society at large — will be a better place for it.