South Holland and the Deepings MP Sir John Hayes writes about the report into racism in English cricket
South Holland and the Deepings MP Sir John Hayes pens his column on cricket – and the recent report into racism in the game...
England’s victory in the latest Ashes contest at Headingley exemplified the best of Test Match cricket – a closely fought contest between fiercely determined, but respectful rivals.
That spirit was undermined in the previous test at Lords when the controversial dismissal of England batsman Jonny Bairstow risked fracturing the competitors’ friendly rivalry and compromising the sporting spirit of cricket.
The rules set out by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the original keepers of the flame of cricket, specify that the sport should be played observing respect for the values of the game, showing sportsmanship, and upholding the long-standing traditions of England’s summer game.
Contravening these conventions, the Australian team signalled that perhaps, for some, these traditions matter less than they once did. Unwritten values can easily disappear when careless individuals lose sight of what matters over time, seeing only the immediacy of victory now.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the very body tasked to defend the spirit and traditions of cricket, recently commissioned, with bitter irony, a report by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) which essentially argues that almost everything about the sport is tinged with hateful intent. Does the national governing body of cricket love and cherish the traditions and heritage of this great sport, or share the view of the ICEC Chair who, with grandeur, stated the report was informed by “the broad reactive introspection generated by the public outcry following the tragic murder of George Floyd.”
Most Britons will ask why the murder of a man in America should result in the bizarre conclusion that the ECB make an all-encompassing apology for racism in cricket, and by extension, society at large.
The report makes sweeping claims such as “racism, sexism, elitism and class-based discrimination have a long history within the culture and institutions of English and Welsh cricket”, but provides no empirical evidence for such a damning conclusion.
Discrimination on the basis of race is wholly unacceptable now, as it always has been, but it is obvious to all but the most jaundiced that such warped personal prejudices cannot be attributed to an entire sport.
Many Britons would argue that cricket – like our society as a whole – is less prejudiced than in years passed, indeed altogether less moved or motivated by judgements about race, than ever before. Cricket is played and enjoyed by people of all creeds and colours in local clubs here in Lincolnshire and across the UK, and the makeup of the England cricket team (for years) has demonstrated the non-discriminatory nature of the game. After all, did anyone cheer less when Moeen Ali took an Aussie wicket than when Stuart Broad did? Of course not.
The fringe theories which the report draws on may be fashionable in certain privileged liberal elitist circles, but they offer no solutions to genuine problems in English cricket, as much as they exist, and worse, risk sowing divisive disharmony where there was none to begin with.
My fear is that the ICEC’s reductive worldview risks deterring people from playing the sport, as they are given - by people who should know better - the false impression that it is racist.
It is truly shocking that such a misleading and highly political report was even commissioned, presumably at considerable expense.
Unsporting cynicism about using any means to win or lose is one thing, but for the guardians of the game to encourage such a misguided distortion of cricket’s history is something much worse.
Do you agree? Post your thoughts below or email andrew.brookes@iliffepublishing.co.uk