While 2021 will be remembered for New Zealand being crowned the inaugural ICC world Test champions and Australia winning their first ICC T20 World Cup, the off the field issue of racism in cricket have also commanded shared attention.
The Cricket South Africa (CSA) Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJB) hearings started in July to address racism in cricket. Several past players spoke about being victims of discriminatory practices and comments.
Testifying before the SJN in October, Jacques Faul, who acted as CSA's CEO on two occasions said: "The appointments of Mark Boucher as Proteas coach and Graeme Smith as the director of cricket sent out the wrong message.” He stated further that the "optics were totally wrong. We should have been politically more sensitive. It's something I regret.” Paul Adams told the inquiry he was referred to as “brown shit” while on international duty.
Allegations of institutional racism by Yorkshire Cricket Club by Azeem Rafiq has resulted in an ongoing investigation. The fallouts have resulted in the former chairman Roger Hutton resigning on November 21; the Director of Cricket, Martyn Moxon; head coach Andrew Gale and the entire coaching staff leaving the club. The club has also seen sponsorship deals being cancelled: Emerald Group Publishing; Yorkshire Tea; Harrogate Spring Water and Nike 4-year kit sponsorship ending after six months.
Michael Holding has been one of the lead advocate against racism in cricket, sport in general and society. His appeals to address racism have resonated with West Indies players [women and men] who have used every opportunity to advocate for awareness and address racial discrimination by taking the knee before every match they play. Holding has also called on all sportspersons to use their celebrity status and followings on the various social media platforms to "… say something, people around the world will want to hear what they have to say and will want to try to understand what they had to say.”
What Holding, Darren Sammy, Jason Holder, Azeem Rafiq, Aaron Phangiso; Dan Christian; Ashwell Prince, Paul Adams and others who have been directly and indirectly affected by racial discrimination have been speaking about adds to a rich culture of trenchant and purposeful support for social justice and equality by sportspersons in their respective sports and society at large.
Some of the well-documented examples of athletes' activism include but not limited to are:
*At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, while on the podium to receive their medals Tommie Smith and John Carlos wore black gloves and raised them in a fist to the sky on the playing of the US national anthem in lieu of putting their hands over their hearts. The significance of the first was to highlight the civil rights struggles of African Americans. In 2021, the South African male cricketers opted to use the fist as opposed to taking the knee as a means of highlighting the need to address racial tension in South African in the post-Apartheid period.
*Tennis player Arthur Ashe and 46 other persons were arrested in 1985 for conducting an anti-apartheid protest outside of the South African embassy in Washington.
*“In 1976, Olympic rower Ernst led 18 of her teammates at Yale University in a protest against unequal facilities being provided for female athletes in comparison to their male counterparts. They took the protests into the office of the university president, where they removed their shirts to reveal “Title IX” written across their bodies. The subsequent media coverage of the protest and the details that caused it led to Yale being pressured into the evening up the conditions for all their athletes”.
*The Fierce Five, the US 2012 Olympic women's gold medal gymnastic team all spoke out about sexual abuse at the hands of ex-USA Gymnastic doctor Larry Nassar who was sentenced in 2018 to up to 175 years in prison for abusing more than 140 women and girls. The case of Nassar's abuse contributed to the reinforcement and significance of the #MeToo Movement at addressing sexual abuse globally across all socio-economic and political spheres of life.
*In 2016, Colin Kaepernick took the knee during the playing of the US national anthem in a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. Kaepernick's action was to demonstrate against police brutality against minority groups across the US. Kaepernick's decision has severely impacted his career but he continues to stand firmly by his action.
The social and political positions of athletes position them to not only raise awareness of social issues such as racism, sexism and gender-based violence but also appeal to sports administrators, fans, politicians and other occupiers of the corridors of power to take action so as to engender social justice and equality.
Holding puts it aptly when he says: “We know it's a cricket problem because it's happening now in cricket. But don't put it in a little box because it's comfortable to put it in a box. It's not only football or cricket has a [racism] problem. It's a society that has a problem. And that is what we need to fix, that's we need to start. If we can accept that it's society and not try to put it in small boxes, then we can get somewhere." In other words, invoke the words of Cyril Lionel Robert [C.L.R. James] racism and all forms of discrimination goes 'Beyond a Boundary.'