Camaraderie has to be protected – but there is a line
➤ The dressing room is a special, sacred place yet racism clearly has no place in team spirit and bonding
Sydney 2007, and it is Shane Warne’s last Test. He is smashing the ball all over the park. I finally get him to glove one behind but umpire Aleem Dar gives it not out. Dejected and angry, I troop to the boundary, when one of the Australian supporters shouts out: “Where have you parked your elephant, mate?” I laughed and replied: “The elephant didn’t make it through customs.”
The fan’s comment was clearly inappropriate but, for me, it was the perfect release in the context of the match, and not something I could get too upset about. For someone else, though, those words could have felt like an unforgivable racist slur.
My point in recalling this is that the line between what constitutes “banter” and what is outright racism can sometimes be more blurred than you think. What one person thinks is a joke, another might find utterly unacceptable.
This was brought into focus by the debate around the language used by Gary Ballance and Azeem Rafiq, with Ballance saying his use of “P--i” was purely “friendly”. In the fall-out, I saw some people arguing that using the P-word was simply the same as calling an Australian “Aussie” or a New Zealander a “Kiwi”.
That does not wash with me. If you refer to any British Asian as a “P--i” they will find it deeply insulting and offensive. It is a loaded, hostile term designed to make people feel excluded from society.
I was never referred to as a “P--i” in my cricket career, although that is not to say dressing rooms could not be tough places. At Northampton, I would sometimes be called “Edward Scissorhands” because my fielding was not the greatest. Was that bullying? I did not feel that way. Rather, it gave me motivation to improve, and was simply a vital part of team spirit and bonding – what we call the cricket brotherhood.
Amid the justifiable concern over the use of racist language, we must not lose that sense of camaraderie that makes the dressing room such a special, sacred place.
My experience was that the county game became more progressive and welcoming as time went on: at my second club, Sussex, for example, we always had halal food options on the menu (it surprises me that Yorkshire did not, according to Rafiq).
It helps when you have senior figures at your county who have a British Asian background. I was fortunate to be surrounded by guys like Usman Afzaal at Northampton, Rana Naved-ul-hasan at Sussex and my good mates Ravi Bopara and Saj Mahmood at Essex. It makes me wonder who Rafiq was talking to at Yorkshire – if he did not feel supported by the county executives, were there people he could talk to in the dressing room?
I feel Yorkshire have made a mess of this whole situation, and it is a shameful episode in their history. The fact is, however, that change will only be enacted when financial pressure is put on an organisation – so the fact that sponsors are pulling out feels significant.
But this is a wider issue that goes beyond Headingley. Some serious conversations need to take place among the England and Wales Cricket Board and county CEOS about how to overhaul the culture of the game and ensure racism is in no way tolerated or indulged.
Let’s learn from sports such as football that have had to confront these issues, and where Kick It Out and Show Racism the Red Card play an important role in educating people.
The Professional Cricketers’ Association already has some great initiatives, helping coaches and executives in the game work out strategies, but we can never do enough.
Having an open conversation is a start – but only a start.