cricket world cup 2023 – Mark Reason: Ross Taylor’s allegations of racism in cricket prompt a scandal of silence
Mark Reason is a sports columnist for Stuff
OPINION: Silence. That is what we are hearing from New Zealand Cricket at the moment and it should trouble us.
A few weeks ago the first excerpts from Ross Taylor’s book Black & White, ghosted notably by Paul Thomas, one of New Zealand’s leading writers, were published. Online Cricket Betting
Some of the content was shocking. Reading between Taylor’s well-mannered lines, one of the finest batsmen in New Zealand’s cricket history was accusing the sport of institutional racism.
When a similar thing happened recently in Britain there was a national outcry. Azeem Rafiq, a former captain of Yorkshire, accused the county and its employees of deeply embedded racism. The claims resulted in a government enquiry.
The BBC suspended former England captain Michael Vaughan who is alleged to have said about a group of Asian cricketers; “too many of you lot, we need to do something about it”. Vaughan categorically denies making the remark and said it “simply never happened”.
But there is no doubt that racism was expressed by many within the Yorkshire playing and administrative staff. Roger Hutton, the chairman of Yorkshire cricket, resigned in the wake of a scandal that reflected a culture in which racism “is rife” according to former England cricketer Michael Carberry. Live Cricket
There is blood on the outfield and there is more to follow. There is even a chance that some current England cricketers will miss the T20 World Cup because they will be forced to return home in order to testify.
Yes, there will be harm done and yes, some will suffer unfairly, but it is the only way forward. The Augean Stables have to be cleaned, because the alternative is that racism will continue to wallow in its own filth.
All over England you can still hear the noise generated by Rafiq and yet it is now nearly two years since he went public about his concerns. But here in New Zealand all I can hear is silence. Grant Robertson is one of the highest profile sports ministers in New Zealand history, but has anyone heard from him?
New Zealand Cricket came out with a statement declaring it “deplores racism, is a staunch supporter of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s Give Nothing to Racism campaign and is deeply disappointed Ross has been exposed to this type of behaviour”. Fine words, but can anyone see the buttered parsnips?
That’s the three wise monkeys for you. If you look at New Zealand Cricket’s strategic plan there is absolutely nothing in it to deal specifically with racism. There are no targets or financial commitments or anything to help fund the game in the underprivileged ethnic minorities of the country. As Taylor points out, cricket is an expensive sport that needs funding in many Pasifika communities – so where is the help for these communities?
As ever it’s all wallpaper. The New Zealand Cricket board looks fine and dandy when it comes to inclusivity. The president and vice president are women. Half the board are women and a quarter is Māori. But what are these people actually doing to tackle the ingrained racism in the sport and the lack of equal opportunity for kids?
Because Taylor makes it very clear that racism is a massive problem.
He wrote: “A teammate used to tell me, “You’re half a good guy, Ross, but which half is good? You don’t know what I’m referring to’. I was pretty sure I did.” Other teammates have made similar remarks but Taylor won’t name them because some are still part of the team and game. But he shouldn’t have to name them for his testimony to be acted on.
Mike Sandle, the Black Caps manager, offered Taylor’s wife help with their finances, because Sandle said a lot of the Māori and Pasifika players had struggled with money in his time with the Blues.
Even more damningly Taylor wrote: “When I came back into the team after the captaincy drama, I found myself sitting next to (coach) Mike Hesson in the Koru Lounge at Dunedin Airport. He’d come straight from his house. ‘My cleaner’s Samoan’, he said. ‘She’s a lovely lady, hard-working, very trustworthy’. All I could say was, ‘Oh, cool’.”
Hesson comes across as a throwback to the time in 2003 when Martin Crowe wrote in his Wisden column that “Daryl Tuffey is a Māori and traditionally, not many Māori make good cricketers because they don’t have the patience or temperament to play through a whole day, leave alone over a test match”.
In the wake of such historic racial insensitivity New Zealand Cricket should be all over Taylor’s comments, but instead they clearly hope that if they do nothing, and say little, then it will all go away. But it won’t.
The power in New Zealand continues to be largely invested in white men. Look at New Zealand Rugby – Mark Robinson, Stewart Mitchell, Ian Foster, Sam Cane, Beauden Barrett. So how much do you think these people want to change the status quo?
New Zealand Rugby’s strategic plan is as barren as New Zealand Cricket’s. Look at those two documents and you will find absolutely nothing of substance. It is all right-on waffle, without any performance targets by which the boards can be held accountable.
Then go and compare those documents with the recently released strategic plan of Cricket Australia. It’s not perfect, but it’s night and day compared to New Zealand’s two pusillanimous offerings.
Cricket Australia’s document talks about bringing people together and promises to “Increase our community funding options” and to “drive higher cultural diversity and inclusion through cricket”.
It’s ‘multicultural action plan’ will use “the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 as a springboard, to make cricket more accessible for participants from culturally diverse communities in Australia, particularly from the cricket loving cultures of South Asia”.
The ‘Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)’ promises that by building “on the momentum of our existing Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) December 2019 – December 2022, we will develop the third iteration of our RAP, accelerating our work to inspire and unite our nation’s First Peoples and non-Indigenous Australians to find common ground and connect through cricket”. At least it’s a start toward the terrible racism testified to by Usman Khawaja, the late Andrew Symonds and others.
But here in New Zealand there is still this deafening silence. The significance of the title of Taylor’s book Black & White seems to have passed cricket’s power brokers by. Perhaps if Taylor had called it Black, Brown & White, a nation divided, someone might have noticed. But I doubt it.
Over 150 years ago a philosopher said the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil over good is for good men to do nothing.
And the good men and women of New Zealand Cricket are experts at doing nothing.
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