Essex promise to investigate after fresh allegations
Another former Essex player of Asian heritage has come forward to allege racist abuse, claiming a teammate asked him if he was “going to bomb the club”.
Jahid Ahmed’s claims that Essex was “a white man’s world where brown people were outsiders” come after Zoheb Sharif, 38, described how he also was called “bomber” and “curry muncher”.
Jahid, 35, who was at Essex from 2005-09, told the Cricketer website he was compared to a terrorist when “in the dressing room with three players and a coach”.
“One of the guys was… new to the team, but he felt the way to fit in was to pick on the Muslim. So he kept saying things like, ‘Would you bomb us?’ And do you know what? He was kind of right because those other players and the coach laughed.”
Jahid claimed one coach used to put on an exaggerated Asian accent and joke about terrorism. “I dreaded it [coming into the club]. I wanted to change my voice. At other times, a senior player told me I was a ‘curry muncher’ and said I ‘stank of curry’. It went on every day.”
The Cricketer reports that at least one of his alleged abusers remains active in the county system. Another is coaching at a different club.
Jahid’s allegations are the latest to hit Essex. Former seamer Maurice Chambers said he was called a “f------ monkey”, and chairman John Faragher recently quit after claims – which he denies – that he used the phrase “n----- in the woodpile”.
John Stephenson, the Essex chief executive, said: “I am disheartened to learn of these new historic racial allegations. I have reached out to him [Jahid] to offer him our full support, and I hope he feels encouraged and comfortable enough to be a part of our imminent investigation.”