‘Racism’ has been the topic of discussion right now around the world. Ever since the murder of George Floyd in the United States of America, numerous protests have been staged around the world to spread awareness against racism in all walks of life. Social media awareness campaigns through the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter have been trending worldwide. As black people around the world started opening up about the criticisms they’ve received over the years, one of the former West Indies cricketers spoke his mind about the racist remarks that he faced during his stint with SRH in the IPL.
Racism is not a fairly new topic in sports, various sportspersons around the world have been preys of theses racists remarks during their career. But with regard to cricket, it was a fairly alien topic. Only a handful of incidents have been reported so far of racist remarks in cricket.
But as protests started taking shape around the world for the rights of ‘Black people’, former West Indies captain Darren Sammy opened up that he had received racists remarks while playing for SRH in the Indian Premier League. He said that many of them used to call him and fellow Sri Lankan Thisara Perera as ‘Kaalu’.
“I just learnt what that ‘kalu’ meant when I played for Sunrisers in the IPL. They call me and Perera by that name. I thought it meant strong Stallion. My previous post tells me something different and I’m angry,” Sammy wrote on his Instagram page.
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He added that he didn’t exactly know what it meant at that time and probably thought that it meant strong black man or black stallion. He didn’t elaborate on who exactly did call him by that name.
“Oh so that’s what that meant when they called me and @tp_perera kalu in India when we played for Sunrisers. I just thought they were calling me strong black man… I’m more piss (sic) now” he commented.
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Sammy urges the ICC to take action
Sammy has urged the ICC to take serious note of racism which exists in the gentleman’s game.
“@ICC and all the other boards are you guys not seeing what’s happening to ppl like me? Are you not gonna speak against the social injustice against my kind. This is not only about America,” he had tweeted earlier.
He had played 38 Tests, 126 ODIs, and 68 T20 Internationals and had captained the West Indies to two T20 World Cup titles. He has represented SRH in 22 matches and has scored 282 runs at an average of 21.69 and has also taken 11 wickets for the Hyderabad based franchise.
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