Right: Western Australia's John McGuire, a high-scoring player who was nevertheless the target of racist taunts.
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Arguments suggesting Australian cricket is racist
1. Australian cricketers use racist sledges and other forms of racial abuse
Those who claim that Australian cricket is racist point to the racist sledges and other types of racial abuse that have been used by prominent Australian cricketers and which are a feature of lower-level cricket competitions.
In an early instance of racial abuse on the cricket field that only came to light years later through an autobiography, Roshan Mahanama claimed that Australian pace bowler Glenn McGrath had called Sanath Jayasuriya, the star Sri Lankan batsman, a 'black monkey'. This claim was made about a match in 1996, in a book published in 2001.
In 2003, Australian test batsman Darren Lehmann, who went on to coach the Australian national team, became the first Australian cricketer to be suspended for racial vilification when he yelled the words 'black c**t' after being dismissed during a one-day international played in Brisbane against Sri Lanka.
Siri Kannangara, the Sri Lankan team doctor, claimed that in his 25 years' experience of Australian tours, the language used by Lehmann was not unusual. Kannangara stated, 'It happens a lot. On the field. About skin colour.'
In 2015, during Australia's Tri-Series One Day International game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australian vice-captain David Warner demanded Indian batsman Rohir Sharma speak English instead of his native Hindi during a mid-pitch altercation between the two. Warner disputed the legality of a single the Indian player had run. Video replays showed the run was legitimate and Warner was fined 50 percent of his match fee over the incident.
Critics of on-field racism argue it occurs at all levels of the sport and may be more prevalent at the lower grades than the higher as these levels of the competition are less closely regulated and do not attract the same degree of media attention. In a comment piece on on-field sledging in Australian cricket, published by the ABC in December 2017, Catherine McGregor noted, 'Firstly, the lower the grade the more vile the abuse that one can expect from the opposition.'
John McGuire, an Indigenous player who played most of his cricket career for Mount Lawley District Cricket Club in Western Australian Grade Cricket and is second in the all-time run-scoring list for the first-grade competition, accumulating more than 10,000 runs, without ever being chosen for his state, has noted, 'There wasn't a match I wasn't racially abused in when I went out to bat.' McGuire referred particularly to white players calling him a coconut: black on the outside, white on the inside. McGuire explained, 'That's one of the worst things you can say to an Aboriginal, but I was called much worse. I was called a black cunt so many times.'
A 2015 Australian National University report on Indigenous exclusion from Australian cricket noted that on-field racial abuse was not discouraged and referred to 'poor practices and ignorance at many club and district levels when it comes to providing an open, welcoming and safe space for Indigenous engagement to occur'.
2. Australian cricket fans are racially abusive
Those who claim that Australian cricket is racist point to the racially offensive behaviour often demonstrated by sections of the crowd attending cricket matches.
The issue has come to a head recently with the accusations of racial abuse being directed by members of the crowd at members of the Indian team competing in the second test match held at the Sydney Cricket ground in January 2021. An Indian cricket team official has accused Australian spectators of calling Indian bowler Mohammed Siraj a 'brown dog' and a 'big monkey' during the third Test in Sydney.
It has been claimed that racist abuse that saw six fans ejected from the ground on the fourth day of the competition was not an isolated incident. Krishna Kumar, who was in the crowd supporting India during the Sydney game, has noted the racist abuse that he heard earlier in the test. He claims to have heard chants of 'curry munchers' directed at India's players and fans, while also being told to 'stop waving (his) f**king flag' and to 'shut the f**k up and sit down.' He noted, 'To me, it is hard to believe that the staff or security at the SCG were not able to hear this ... it's baffling, it's shocking that no one took action on day three (about) the crowd behavior.'
It has also been claimed that this racist conduct is not a recent development but an entrenched aspect of the behaviour of Australian cricket crowds. Veteran Indian player, Ravichandran Ashwin has claimed he has been the victim of abuse from Sydney crowds for almost a decade. Ashwin stated, 'This is my fourth tour of Australia and in Sydney, we have had a few experiences even in the past... The way the crowd have been speaking ... they have been quite nasty and hurling abuse as well. There is a time where they have gone one step ahead and used racial abuses.'
Ashwin further noted, 'If I take myself back to my first tour in 2011-12, I had no clue about racial abuse and how you can be made to feel small in front of so many people... When I stood at the boundary line, you wanted to stand another 10 yards in to keep yourself away from these things.'
The same point has been made by former Australian test batsman Ed Cowan, who has stated, 'Casual or otherwise, racism is a massive issue in Australian society...The big thing other people haven't spoken about is this happens every game. This is not an outlier.'
There have been many earlier instances of racist crowd behaviour. In 2003 during a test played between India and Australia on the Adelaide Oval Indian spectators and journalists reported being called names such as 'coolie' and 'curry muncher'. One Indian immigrant, who sits on the board of a major corporation in Melbourne, said he had feared for his safety as he left the Adelaide Oval.
During the same competition, an officially organised 'spectator of the day' competition was held in which the finalists selected from the crowd included six local men who had darkened their skin and donned nappies and turbans to resemble the Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi.
In 2005, South African black cricketer Makhaya Ntini complained that sections of the crowd in the Perth test called him and several other players 'kaffirs'( blacks) and 'kaffir boetie' (brother of blacks).
In a 1986 Boxing Day test between England and Australia, played in Melbourne, fans racially abused West Indian-born Englishman Gladstone Small by throwing bananas at him.
Victoria University Institute for Health and Sport research fellow Matthew Klugman has stated, 'It's fair to say Australian cricket is still a place of systemic racism - as is Australia at large, the fan culture just reflects this.'
3. Australian sports commentators regularly make racist comments
Those who argue that Australian cricket is racist claim that the problem extends to Australian sports commentators, who, they claim, like many players and supporters, also display racist attitudes.
In 2006, Australian Test cricketer and subsequent commentator Dean Jones referred to South African cricketer Hashim Amla as a 'terrorist' when the South African player took a catch to dismiss Kumar Sangakkara. 'The terrorist gets another wicket,' Jones was heard saying when the broadcast switched to a commercial break. Jones was sacked as a commentator following this remark and his comment was condemned as inflammatory and bigoted as a reference to someone of the Muslim faith.
During the 2015 Cricket World Cup, Channel Nine's Today show host Karl Stefanovic asked a group of Indian cricket fans who would be staffing 7-Eleven shops during the World Cup clash. The remark has been condemned as racist stereotyping.
In 2018, during the India vs Australia Test being played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, former Australian test cricketer Kerry O'Keefe, working as a commentator for Fox Sports, stated that Indian opening batsman Mayank Agarwal's highest First-Class score of 304 not out came against 'the Railways Canteen staff'.
O'Keefe went on to ask, 'Who opened the bowling for them that day? The chef. First change? The kitchen hand. And they've got the spinner as well, the casual uni student.' This was understood as disparaging the Indian team against which Agarwal had made his triple century, drawing on racial stereotypes of Indians as railway workers, cooks, and food servers. During the same broadcast, former Australian Test cricketer, Mark Waugh, commented that Agarwal's first-class average of upwards of 50 was like 40 in Australia. During the same test match, O'Keefe reputedly made a further disparaging remark about the names of Indian players during commentary on the fourth day of the Indian vs Australia test being played in Melbourne. After being asked about his difficulty pronouncing the names of the Indian players, O'Keefe remarked, 'Why would you name your kid Cheteshwar, Jadeja?' His fellow commentators were heard laughing in response.
In December 2020, former Australian Test cricketer Shayne Warne was criticised for a racist reference that also centred on Cheteshwar Pujara's name. During his commentary for Fox Sport on Day 1 of the Adelaide Test between India and Australia, Warne referred to Pujara as 'Steve'. The remark was considered offensive not just because it suggested a refusal to use the Indian player's actual name but because of its association with an ongoing instance of racist abuse dating from Pujara's time playing for English county club, Yorkshire.
In December 2020, Yorkshire launched an investigation into alleged racism after cricketer Azeem Rafiq lodged a case against the club claiming racism. A Yorkshire employee named Taj Butt further alleged that the name 'Steve' was used as a reference to 'every player of colour'. Butt also stated, 'There were continuous references to taxi drivers and restaurant workers when referring to the Asian community.'
Critics objected to Warne's apparent in-joke at Pujara's expense drawing on this accusation of racism. 4. Historically, Indigenous Australians and others of non-Anglo-Saxon origins have been excluded from cricket
Those who claim that Australian cricket is racist point to the extent to which the game is monopolized by players with an Anglo-Celtic background and claim that since its inception Australian cricket has excluded those of different ethnic backgrounds.
University of the Sunshine Coast researcher David Utting has examined how Cricket Australia has traditionally aligned itself with notions of Anglo-Australia rather than embracing multiculturalism. Utting notes that between 1946 and 2015, there were only 10 Test players for the Australian men's team whose lineage was not British.
Critics of the racial bias of the game claim that when different ethnicities fail to see their race represented in the higher echelons of the game, such as Test cricket, then they cease to aspire to play at a local level. Political and social commentator Waleed Aly has contrasted the stance of Cricket Australia with that of the producers of the children's television program, Sesame Street. Sesame Street contained a vast range of characters because its producers believed that if a child did not find a reflection of him or herself - through gender, race, ability - on the show, it was like looking into a mirror and seeing nothing. Aly accused the Australian Cricket Board of having a 'narrow' approach in its selection processes which potentially alienated a large part of its potential support and player base.
As an indication of the limited infiltration of non-Anglo players into cricket competition at lower levels, sports historian Richard Cashman has noted in a 1995 study of Under-19 cricketers in six states and two territories that all but one of 80 were born in Australia with only two stating that English was not the only language spoken at home.
The situation regarding the inclusion of Indigenous players in cricket has been noted as particularly parlous. John McGuire, an Indigenous player who played most of his cricket career for Mount Lawley District Cricket Club in Western Australian Grade Cricket and is second in the all-time run-scoring list for the first-grade competition, accumulating more than 10,000 runs, was never once chosen for his state. McGuire has stated, 'For the past 40 years of my life, I've been trying through the West Australian Cricket Association (WACA) to encourage and create a pathway for Aboriginal cricketers and unfortunately, nothing has been done. It's fallen short simply by exclusion. There's plenty of talent out there, it's just never been tapped. It's appalling.'
McGuire has concluded, 'Let's be honest about it, cricket hasn't been a game for all Australians. Aboriginals think cricket is a white fella's sport, because we don't see black players in the team. That is why West Indies were my team. I could identify with them.'
Cricketers of diverse nationalities have noted how difficult and destructive the racism they have encountered from other players was and how difficult it made it for them to continue playing the game. In a report on Indigenous exclusion in cricket published in 2015, one Indigenous player noted, 'One guy said to me on the field, "what are you playing cricket for boong boy? Go play rugby league with ya coon mates."' Another example came from an Indigenous player who decided to keep his race secret. He stated, 'I'm the only Aboriginal player in the team [although my teammates didn't know that]. I...was too scared to let anyone know...I remember them [my team] bagging out a black guy from another team, really badly, and I was just ashamed.'
Similar examples of exclusion on the field and in club rooms have been cited at different levels of Australian cricket. Usman Khawaja, Australia's first Muslim Test cricketer has told of the racial abuse he suffered as a youngster with other players' parents calling him a 'Paki' and opponents branding him a 'f***ing curry-muncher'. He has explained the psychological effect such treatment has on those of different racial origins either playing the game or considering doing so. Khawaja has stated, 'It is for this reason why so many of my friends, most of whom were born outside Australia, didn't support Australia in sporting contests...especially in cricket.'
Khawaja has further stated, 'My point is this: it's no surprise it has taken Australia cricket so long for coloured players to come through the system. There is no doubt racism and politics played a large role in selections in the past.
"I could have played for Australia, but I didn't get selected because I was black/Indian/Pakistani, so I stopped playing." I've heard that story all my life, whether it was from a family friend or just a random bloke...'
5. Cricket Australia has not done enough to ensure racial diversity and tolerance in cricket
Cricket Australia, the governing body of the game, has been criticised for not having done sufficient to ensue ethnic and cultural diversity in cricket.
Victoria University Institute for Health and Sport research fellow Matthew Klugman has stated, 'The sense that cricket lags even behind other codes [on issues of racial diversity] is probably true. Historically it's been a much whiter sport than the various football codes.
It has been claimed that Cricket Australia has not done sufficient to ensure that Australian cricket reflects the diversity of Australia's population. A survey of Australian cricket clubs conducted in 2003-4 found that only 1.35 percent of players were of indigenous origin, while only 11.25 percent were of a non-English speaking background.
This primarily white, Anglo-Saxon representation has been criticised. Writing on ESPNcricinfo in 2013 about an Australian team of 20 years ago, the journalist Adam Cooper said that their first names read like 'Home and Away regulars: Mark, David, Justin, Mark, Steve, Allan, Ian, Paul, Shane, Merv and Craig.' This is well after Australia's migration demographic had changed from post-war Eurocentric arrivals to immigrants from far-east and south-east Asia.
As of 2015, one in four Australians was born overseas, with a further 20 percent belonging to homes with at least one parent born in another country. In the four-year period from 2007 to census 2011, nine out of ten 'recent arrivals' to Australia came from Asian nations with immigrants from India making up 13 percent.
While as of 2016, 3.3 percent of Australia's population identify as Aboriginal. Australian cricket does not reflect this diversity. The failure of Cricket Australia to adequately address the issue of a lack of ethnic and cultural diversity within the sport is claimed to be apparent when Australia is compared with other nations in which cricket has historically been a 'white' game. In a study of racism in Australian cricket published in the Journal of Sociology in 2006 it was noted that among the test playing nations in which cricket has been dominated by white players and administrators, the Australian cricket team has been one of the slowest to desegregate, remaining almost entirely white. Notably, the English team, which has recently had a captain of Asian descent, is more racially integrated than the Australian team, and has been for at least two decades. It was also noted that in post-apartheid South Africa, part of the shift towards building a non-racial rainbow nation has been to develop quota systems, in which teams have been required at particular times to have a certain number of black players in the squad.
Critics have claimed that Cricket Australia has lagged behind the administrative bodies of other key cricketing nations in ensuring that they present multicultural teams that better reflect the racial diversity of their countries. Ian Chappell, former Australian test cricket captain and now a cricket commentator, is among those critical of Cricket Australia's efforts up to this point. Chappell has stated, 'It's only in very recent times that much has been done to try to attract Aboriginals to the game...It's a very diverse country and there's no doubt that cricket doesn't reflect that diversity yet.'
It has also been claimed that despite the anti-racial vilification regulations governing the game, Cricket Australia has not done enough to shift the culture within the team. Mark Anthony Taylor, a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator, has said in relation to racist attitudes among Australian players, 'There's been enough smoke to know that there's some fire there. There's probably been warning signs for a while and we've probably been too slow to react to those warning signs.'