CRICKET FACING RACISM RETHINK
England board and players vow action as survey reveals extent of bias
ENGLAND opener Rory Burns said it was “important” to educate players, including the national team, about racism in cricket after a survey revealed many BAME players have faced prejudice in the game.
The Professional Cricketers Association (PCA) said more than a third of BAME players in the professional game had experienced racism from other players, fans and social media.
English cricket has seen a number of high-profile allegations of racism in recent months.
Former Yorkshire spinner Azeem Rafiq filed a legal claim against the county after claiming “institutional racism” had left him feeling suicidal. Meanwhile, former England batsman Michael Carberry said “cricket was rife with racism”, while the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) is being sued by former umpires John Holder and Ismail Dawood, who said they faced racism while working in the game.
The PCA and the ECB will begin an education programme in March for all domestic and national squads.
“All we can do to keep it relevant. Keeping people aware of the issues that are going on in the game is important,” said Burns, who is with the national team in India ahead of the four-Test series.
“And it is great to see that the PCA and the ECB are having initiatives to actually educate players, so we can really get on board with it. Anything that increases diversity and inclusivity is only a positive thing to me.”
According to a report in the Telegraph the courses will cover dressing-room culture, raise awareness of how behaviour can be interpreted by different cultures, and encourage people to challenge anything they deem to be unacceptable after ‘banter’ was identified as a mask for racism.
“The BAME professional population that had witnessed or experienced some form of racism, percentages-wise, they are quite high. Sport in general and
cricket specifically, because of the news coverage this has received of late, has probably always had that and it’s always been disguised under the term ‘banter’,” former England and Kent spinner, Min Patel, told the BBC.
“The banter which was acceptable 15 or 20 years ago when I was playing is not an acceptable form of banter now. I think we are getting to the point where people are saying, ‘No, no, we’ve got to draw a line’, quite rightly. We have lots of educational programmes around various other aspects of the game – lifestyle, gambling – but racism is very much to the fore at the moment.”
Cricket is the latest sport to highlight racism after 23 of 173 PCA members who took part in the survey said they had been a target of abuse.
Of the people surveyed, 24 were from a BAME background and of those, 12 said they had experienced racism. Ten of the 12 are current professionals.
The PCA said the survey results meant that 38 per cent of BAME professionals had been affected.
The survey was sent to 575 male and female cricketers, including those who have left the game in the past two years.
“It would have been far better if the vast majority of players had responded.
Why they didn’t is very difficult to speculate,” said Charlie Mulraine, the PCA’s lead personal development manager.
“Sometimes there is nervousness talking about these issues and some are uncomfortable to express how they feel.”
The ECB said in November it would take measures aimed at increasing diversity in the game.
The governing body has annouced it will introduce an anonymous phone line to report racism, issue guidance on how people can be held to account for breaches and a forum for sharing experiences of racism.
“Racism in the game
is unacceptable and the game needs to take action,” the PCA’s chief executive, Rob Lynch, said.
“We needed to start somewhere. This gives us a clear direction of travel and it is an ambition to increase engagement with our members on this issue.
“The option to do nothing was not there so the fact it has led us in this direction is a positive for the game.
“There is plenty of work to be done in the fight for equality.”
England players did take a knee along with the touring West Indies side to support the Black Lives Matter campaign when cricket resumed after the coronavirus lockdown in July last year.