Offensive shirt slogan just isn’t cricket

Like a decent sledge between players, a bit of banter on the embankment is part and parcel of the cricket-watching experience. However, one fan who was at Tuesday’s T20 international in Nelson is speaking out about what she deemed an unacceptable choice of words on another spectator’s shirt.

Sharon Johnston was watching the Black Caps-England game from Saxton Oval’s southern embankment when she spotted the replica 1992 world cup-era New Zealand shirt just in front of her.

‘‘Fortunately, all the letters had run together, so kids would have really had to sit there and study it to grasp what it said, but my concern was that he was able to walk around in this,’’ she said. ‘‘There were officials around that must have seen this.’’

The ‘‘player name’’ on the back of the shirt was a play on the name of Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic which made a blunt reference to oral sex.

Johnston – a trustee of the Nelson Women’s Centre – has posted the offending photo to social media.

She chose not to speak to the man during the game. Nor did she see anyone else approach him. However, on further reflection, she decided it was necessary to highlight the issue.

Johnston said the fact that someone was openly wearing the shirt in a public place showed that there was still some way to go in addressing sexist attitudes towards women.

‘‘It’s bloody outrageous, quite frankly – and not just to women. The male that I was with found it incomprehensible that someone would wear it. It was nice to hear a bloke say it was vile.’’

Stuff has approached both the Nelson Cricket Association and NZ Cricket for comment.

One of the terms and conditions which ticket-holders to NZ Cricket sanctioned games agree to upon purchase is ‘‘not to engage in any conduct, act towards or speak to any player, umpire, referee or other official or other spectators in a manner which offends, insults, humiliates, intimidates, threatens, disparages or vilifies in any manner whatsoever’’.