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Loading ...Good call on not taking CA’s path on crowd control Will. As an Australian who loves his cricket, and a good fun day at the cricket, this madness of banning Mexican Waves, beach balls, beer snakes, musical instruments, laughter etc, I am embarrassed by CA’s actions. We are supposed to be a nation of larrikins, yet go to the cricket and its like going to your strict aunties house. “Don’t do this, don’t touch that”. Banning the fun crowd practises is only going to stop people going to the cricket. Cricket Australia is shooting itself in the foot.
Racism schmacism; get on with the cricket
By Will last year, mid-January Leave a comment on this post
Chris Broad has a fairly unenviable job and much of his blog is a diary of the standard of airport lounges and hotels he comes across. All jolly interesting, but this latest post was much more like it: his handling of the Herschelle Gibbs ban.
Almost half the SA side accompanied Gibbs into the hearing which made things very cosy because I also had the Pakistan management and the captain in our small umpires’ room. There was a lot of frank discussion with SA defending their man but Pakistan saying how hurt they were by the remarks. After 45 minutes of chat and counter chat both side had just about finished so I adjourned the hearing so that I could get my head around what had been said and come to a decision. I made that decision after calling the players back to the room and I could get away from the fact that the remarks, however provoked were racial and were offensive to the Pakistanis. I was left with no option but to ban Gibbs for 2 Test matches. This is the worst part of my job because I was very passionate about the game when I played and I sometimes boiled over at instances that happened but this has to be stamped on as racial abuse, whether it’s player on player or crowd to player or player to crowd, must be eradicated.
I trust this will be the last we hear of this subject in this series and I hope Cricket SA take the case of crowd control very seriously because this is how the whole ugly incident began!
Indeed so.
Racial issues are understandably eggshellish. And while everyone and their uncle rightly wants it stamped out, it’s somewhat complacent, irresponsible and naive to just state this without any suggestions as to how it can be achieved. It irritates me that the ICC, in particular, tend to puff out their moral chests and beat the anti-racism drum…without actually doing anything about it. However, in their defence I don’t necessarily believe the that this is cricket’s problem. It’s far, far wider than the sport; this is about a confused society.
The disappointing aspect is that cricket, often the bridge between cultures and societies, seems to be acting as the catalyst. Or worse, a forum for other people’s warped opinions and abuse.
Broad is right. Cricket SA need to get hold of these supporters and never let them back in. However, just don’t let them, or any other board for that matter, mirror the dictatorial practices enforced by Cricket Australia…
Tags: chris-broad, herschelle-gibbs, pakistan-in-south-africa, racism, south-africa |
8 Responses to “Racism schmacism; get on with the cricket”
January 18th, 2007 at 4.14 am
January 18th, 2007 at 4.40 am
I’m a little confused .. I thought I had heard and seen the Gibbs comments and while derogatory didn’t think they were racist … did I miss something?
January 18th, 2007 at 9.17 am
You are right Will, but the problem is much more wide spread the sport. With regards to stamping out the offenders though, what I notice is that whenever Pakistani fans are involved in such incidents it from amongst our fan base abroad. There have been complains before from England, and now this episode in South Africa.
It is interesting to note that the reputation Pakistani fans in Pakistan have is very different. In recent times, almost every touring team that has come here, from Sri Lanka to India to West Indies and England, has seen both their fans and their media alike, having widely praised the “hospitality” they received, with no reports of, to my knowledge, abuse from the crowd, of any kind, racial or otherwise, which is especially why the sweeping generalizations from people like Fannie de Villers are even more disappointing.
Indeed, when SA it self, toured Pakistan a couple of years ago, they did not complain of anything. Even though, in the run up to that tour too, Smith had similarly implied a lot of false conjecture about Pakistan as a country and how safe it was. Pakistani fans could have, if they were, as Smith and De Villers imply, by inherent nature unruly and uncivilized, pay back Smith for his offensive comments by dishing up abuse for his team, but that was certainly not the case. I remember the one-day series, which was won by SA after being 0-2 down at one stage, saw full houses for each match, and no incident of any kind was reported. In fact the atmosphere was great.
So, perhaps countries should take a look their own systems, and ask the question, why such natives of their own countries, are enticed to such uncivilized behavior. Or in the least, they should look at their in-stadium security facilities, and ask why such events are happening. Security presence in Pakistan for cricket matches almost always is that of VIP standards, yes, I admit, it cuts down on a lot of the charm of seeing the cricket, but I cannot deny it is an approach that has been very affective.
Since India toured here for their historic tour of 2004, the first full tour they made in 14 years, Pakistan have had almost no reported crowd behavior problems in international matches. When security has been on the thinner side, like it is in domestic matches, some madness has ensued. But nothing, to my recollection at the international level.
It is sad therefore to see that the image of Pakistan’s crickets’ followers is being tarnished by the few who do not even really belong to Pakistan as such.
January 18th, 2007 at 12.48 pm
Zainub - you’ve done very well in dispelling the stereotype that all Pakistani supporters are rowdy; rather the opposite - that they are very well behaved and extremely focused and passionate about cricket.
Australian supporters have developed notoriety for racism - but as Zainub has pointed out, you always get a very small minority creating the view that all supporters for that team are racist, or indeed that whole country is racist.
Graeme Smith and Andre Nel complained last summer that they were being called ‘kaffirs’ from people within the crowd - as an Australian, I have no idea what that means. I’ve always long suspected it was disgruntled South African supporters, yet due to previous incidents from pockets of crowds over the years, and the unfortunate Cronulla riots, all of the sudden Australia is a racist country!
In a world of political correctness, ‘growing’ racism and quick media labelling entire sections of society are being unfairly signalled as racist when they are merely voicing their disapproval at the opposite team.
January 18th, 2007 at 6.25 pm
Yes, because the ECB has it all figured out… riggghhhht… and so does every other tongue and nation except for Australia and South Africa… right…
Get off it.
January 20th, 2007 at 1.20 am
Racist behavior at cricket test is nothing new, over the years i have watched cricket test in many corners of the world but sadly the most deployable act i witnessed was in my own home town of Christchurch at what then use to be called Lancaster Park. England was playing New Zealand in front of a small crowd, 2 idiots during the course of the match were making monkey impressions and threw a banana at one of the english players in the out field. After some time the police did arrive and warned them to behave and the matter was left there, where today they would have been thrown out.I admire the players that were being abused for not jumping the fence and dealing a bit of justice out, they had every right too.This test was in the mid 80′S and if this was to happen in todays environment it would make headlines the world over.Hopefully i never have to witness such again and i would like to think that if i was to approach the two persons who carried out the abuse that they with the passing of years are now embarrassed by their actions.
January 21st, 2007 at 7.02 am
great post by zainub..
pakistani cricket fans in pakistan are very well behaved..
who were these “pakistanis” in the crowd..? i doubt any pakistani went over from pakistan..
my guess would be the native south asian population in south africa..
and if that is true then it is a problem that south africa needs to deal with..
just carying a pak fan or supporting the pak team doesn’t make you “pakistani”..
similarly bad crowd behaviour from cricket fans of south asian origin in england is a problem that england needs to deal with.. not the country from where their parents came from..
it is interesting to note how when something good is done by a south asian.. he/she is seen as british..
but if something bad is done.. all of a sudden the individual becomes of pakistani origin..
January 21st, 2007 at 3.45 pm
Little men have long toes.
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