Is cricket in the UK an institutionally racist sport? This is a question that hasn’t been posed many times in the past but recently, and somewhat suddenly, has begun to dominate the back pages. First, former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq forced the county into a high profile investigation by alleging deep rooted racism within the club structure. He has stated that he heard Asians being referred to as ‘Pakis’ and ‘elephant washers’ and that his treatment at the club left him feeling suicidal. The English Cricket Board rightly welcomed Yorkshire’s investigation, only to be hit by its own allegations of institutional racism by ex-umpires John Holder and Ismail Dawood, who claimed that their careers were held back because of the colour of their skin. The game’s governing body will now have to launch an investigation of their own and it too will be just as highly scrutinized, if not more so.
These are very serious allegations. I believe that there will undoubtedly be some racist people involved in the running of cricket, not just at grassroots level but all the way up to the professional game as well. It may well transpire that Yorkshire is found guilty of institutionally racism and it does seem hard to believe that Rafiq would make these accusations without some basis. Similarly, it may be judged that the ECB’s treatment of its umpires was just as discriminatory. Either way, as the world we live in has become so polarized, there will be people on either side shouting as loudly as they can from the rooftops, or on social media, that Yorkshire and the ECB are either ‘institutionally racist’ or ‘not racist at all’. But do these arguments mean that we tend to ignore something that has become a major problem in society? Is there something in between ‘institutionally racist’ and ‘not racist at all’ that actually leads to far more inequality than the most vile forms of racism? I firmly believe there is, and it’s called ‘unconscious bias’.
Unconscious bias is the trigger at the back of your mind when deciding to hire someone from a white, middle class background - perhaps like yourself - rather than a black man from a less privileged background, who everyone likes but there’s something about him that suggests he might not ‘fit in’ as well as the other candidate. It’s the reason you might prefer the tattooed, inoffensive personal trainer from Love Island rather than the happy go lucky Asian accountant, as he just seems ‘more relatable’. It’s why you may not feel as intimidated when a white teenager with a hoodie is walking towards you rather than a black one. This is not blatant racism, far from it. It’s a deep set way of thinking ingrained in millions of white people across the world on account of the society they happened to be brought up in. I don’t believe that there are millions of hard core racists in the world, but I do believe that there are millions of people with a deep rooted unconscious bias.
And it is rife within cricket too. With an Indian mother and a white English father, I have a foot in both camps and it’s led to a fascinating experience playing representative and club cricket over the last 30 years. As I happen to have English first and surnames, was born here and am culturally ‘very English’, the white majority have always looked at me as one of their own – and in many ways, I am. From my years playing and working in cricket, I’ve seen and heard the disparaging, stereotypical remarks about the ‘lazy’ fast bowlers from the Caribbean and the ‘selfish’ Asian batsmen. I’ve seen Asian players left out of teams for white players who aren’t as talented but are better fielders and ‘better in the changing room’. Even now there is still a massive issue at many clubs where the white and Asian players operate in separate cliques. Often the white players all go out drinking together while the Asians sit around a table in the clubhouse having a takeaway. That’s not to say that some of the minorities haven’t contributed to this disconnect by being quite insular themselves, but the unconscious bias throughout society has been the biggest factor in driving a wedge between all the diverse cultures within English cricket.
The sad thing is, the biggest loser in all of this is English cricket itself. We’ve already seen a massive drop off in the numbers of black players playing county cricket, to the extent that there were only 9 with contracts last year as opposed to 33 in 1995. This has cost the England team as there is no longer a steady supply of British Caribbean players coming through and enhancing the overall quality. Now, unfortunately, the same thing is happening with British Asian cricketers. In this case it is slightly different though as there are still a staggering number of Asian junior and club cricketers – around 30-35 % depending on who you ask. Even more astounding a statistic is that despite this high number only around 5% of county cricketers are Asian. Putting aside the reasons why there is such a drop off for a moment, the simple fact is that this is a terrible waste of a lot of talent. If English cricket was a big multinational corporation that had called in a consulting firm to analyse and re-focus their business, the consulting firm would immediately point to the 30-35% of British Asians as a huge untapped resource. The numbers slap you right in the face. Club and junior county cricket in the UK manages to reflect the diverse society we live in but professional cricket does not. It’s that simple.
Once again, I’m not saying that the Asian community isn’t partly to blame for this. A couple of years ago I produced and presented an investigative documentary for Sky Sports that explored why the numbers in county cricket are so low and it must be said that there are some internal factors too – such as many Asian families not seeing professional sport as a viable future profession and therefore not providing the necessary support. But I also found that there was a big issue with many British Asians – whether Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan or Afghan – simply not feeling connected to this country. A lot of this came from a sense that they were made to feel like outsiders in the place that many of them were born in. Numerous times I have heard British Asians involved in the game, from amateur up to professional level, clearly state that they feel the dice is loaded against them. And this takes us back to unconscious bias.
I understand why the question whether cricket is institutionally racist needs to be asked but it needs to be done while not forgetting that there is a bigger threat out there. Overt racism can easily be highlighted and condemned but unconscious bias is much harder to accept and change. We need to get to the bottom of perplexing situations in UK sport, such as why there are so few black football managers and only a small percentage British Asian county cricketers. The only way to do this is to accept our own bias, understand that it does not make us racist but that it contributes to the current inequality. Until this happens though, it will be very hard for cricket or any other sport to change for the better.