England Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Richard Gould said that dressing room banters will no longer be accepted. Gould said that ECB will establish a new set of rules to be followed by the teams to restrict racist comments against the players.
According to the new set of rules, the word banter will be treated as a “swear word” and the teams will be instructed to reassess their dressing room culture following an allegation by a Yorkshire racism case involving Azeem Rafiq. “We have seen within dressing rooms, banter used to be a word that you could use. But the banter is a swear word now. Banter is not acceptable,” speaking to the Guardian, Richard Gould said.
Former England skipper Andrew Strauss shared his opinion on this matter, stating that the dressing room banters must be restricted and the players from different countries should accept players from different nationalities.
Moreover, Pakistan-born Rafiq, who played for county side Yorkshire for almost a decade stated that racist comments by his teammates made him close to taking his life.
“As we move forward together as a game with players of different genders, races, creeds, and beliefs coming together, so the traditional macho, hierarchical, perhaps at times verging on bullying dressing-room banter will need to be softened to a culture that is more tolerant, understanding, welcoming, and embracing of difference,” Andrew Strauss said
With country cricket and hundred being the major leagues for England in home conditions, ECB needs to impose these kinds of rules for the betterment of overseas players to come and play in their leagues.
We Needed To Ensure We Could Deal With Those Issues – Richard Gould
Richard Gould said that these kinds of racist comments have emerged over the years in England cricket, as former England skipper Michael Vaughan was also alleged of racist comments about Azeem Rafiq.
“That was an important moment for the game, That was the culmination of a lot of issues over a long period which had become poisonous for the game. We needed to ensure we could deal with those issues,” Richard Gould continued.
Earlier, five of the six former Yorkshire players who had been charged by the CDC – Matthew Hoggard, Tim Bresnan, John Blain, Andrew Gale, and Rich Pyrah – were found to violate cricket directives for making racist and discriminatory remarks.