The tall, elegant Michael Holding packed a punch with every ball he delivered. An umpire dubbed him Whispering Death due to his silent, light-footed run-up to the crease. He actually looked like he was gliding above water, but after the ball left the wrist of this 6-foot-3 speedster the batsmen quivered as most of his deliveries touched around 95 miles per hour. Holding was a member of a deadly Caribbean quartet that included greats Andy Roberts, the late Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner. They were fearsome and few messed around with them. But Holding — who retired last year after a lengthy spell as a much sought-after commentator — has admitted in his book, Why We Kneel, How We Rise, he did not speak out against racism although he saw it all around him.
“I chose not to confront it because I was being selfish,” the 69-year-old said. “You saw what happened to athletes when they tried to speak up. Their careers came to an end.”
He was referring to American athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith who raised black-gloved fists at the 1968 Mexico Olympics during the medal ceremony for the 200 metres.
“There wasn’t enough pressure on people to heed a black man calling out back then,” he says.
But after all these years, Holding has found his voice especially following the Black Lives Matter movement that rocked the world. Unfortunately, racism in sports is still alive and well and continues to rear its ugly head. Everyone is familiar with the apartheid policies of South Africa and after all these years the independent country often finds itself mired in controversy over team selection, coaching and personnel.
A few months ago, charges of racism made headlines in England as some of its county clubs came under the spotlight for the treatment of their coloured players. Some were quick to apologize, while others of course denied it, but the investigation continues. That did not stop fast bowler Chris Jordan from opening up about the “relentless” racist abuse he received after England was knocked out of the Twenty20 World Cup last November. On the field, Jordan was taken to the cleaners by New Zealand and England — one of the hot favourites to win the tournament — bowed out. Jordan was ripped apart on social media.
“Social media, it was relentless for me, on Twitter and Instagram there were lots of [racist] comments on my pictures and in my direct messages because we had lost a World Cup game. People felt that I had a big part to do with that,” says Jordan.
On Sunday Scotland’s cricket board resigned en masse, a day before a report by an independent commission was to be made public on racism in that country. The report said it was “shocked” to see the governing body practised institutional racism. The organization will be placed under special measures by Sportscotland, the national agency for sport, after 448 instances of institutional racism were uncovered. The study was commissioned by Sportscotland in December after former Scotland players Majid Haq and Qasim Sheikh made claims of racism in the wake of revelations in England by Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Almost 1,000 people were interviewed in Scotland and the conclusions were damning. Even though Haq is still the country’s leading wicket-taker he is still not in his country’s hall of fame. His international career ended after he sent a tweet giving his opinion that race was a factor when he was sent home from the 2015 World Cup. He outlined a number of examples of being the subject of racial and religious discrimination throughout his Scotland career and made 10 referrals to the review team. The chief executive of Sportscotland, Stewart Harris, described the findings as “deeply concerning and in some cases shocking.”
Meanwhile, Aamer Anwar, the solicitor for Sheikh and Haq, described the Plan4Sport report as the “most devastating verdict to be delivered on any sporting institution in the United Kingdom.”
He added: “The board’s resignations are welcome, but that is the barest minimum. Cricket Scotland took the cowardly option of resigning 24 hours before publication, meaning there is nobody to answer for their failure of leadership, institutional racism and abuse of the values of integrity, fairness and equality.”
Holding’s book details the hurdles coloured and black athletes have to overcome and the findings in Scotland bear him out.
“The book has been a difficult journey,” Holding says, “because so many of the stories were painful to write down. But I want it to be difficult reading. It’s not an easy conversation to have, it’s not an easy acceptance. But it is the truth.”
Post a Comment