A large contingent of South Australian Police move through the spectators on the hill on the third day of the second Ashes test. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
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Cricket Australia has a problem. Like a scab that doesn’t heal in the tropics, they have allowed racism to fester at Australian cricket grounds.
It is a serious claim worth serious investigation, but conveniently brushed under the carpet by authorities and mass media.
Over the years, and I am sure many readers will share the same experience, I have heard friends, acquaintances and work colleagues tell me how they have stopped attending the shorter forms of the game involving the Australian cricket team because they don’t want be a part of an unpleasant social experience.
Last Friday 62,000 thousand people turned up to MCG to watch a Twenty 20 match between Australia and India. A healthy turnout, you might suggest, but significantly less than the 84,000 that turned up four years for the same fixture.
If it was not for the Melbourne’s burgeoning, passionate Indian cricket community, the crowd would have been much, much less.
Thankfully, they also provided the only genuine atmosphere in the most manufactured of sporting environments.
Also in attendance were the usual suspects of booze fuelled miscreants who think it their patriotic duty to make it a miserable night for everyone within earshot.
The biggest crime you could commit on this occasion was to have an “Un-Australian” resemblance to Usman Khawaja.
I was saddened, but not surprised, when on Saturday afternoon I listened to SEN radio presenter, Matt Thompson, recollect some of the unseemly events he witnessed the night before; including a beer cup being thrown at an Indian spectator.
His admission prompted the talkback line to be flooded with cricket fans who related similar experiences of racial abuse and anti-social behaviour.
As some kind of cruel ironic joke, and only hours before the game on Friday night, the MCG was used as the venue to launch Harmony Day 2012 to recognise “the positive influence that sport has in our multicultural nation. Involvement in sport whether as a participant, volunteer, spectator or administrator unites people of all ages and fosters a sense of belonging, acceptance and an understanding of other cultures.”
My suggestion is for Cricket Australia to shame racist spectators who use the cloak of supporting the Australian cricket team by initiating an advertising campaign at the grounds and on television.
It is long overdue. But will they have the courage to admit the problem and do something about it?
It is no surprise the Big Bash League is proving popular with families.
Not only is it cheaper to attend, but the multi-racial city based league stops it from descending into an “Ugly” Australian jamboree.
You would think someone at Cricket Australia must have noticed this by now.
Athas Zafiris is on Twitter @ArtSapphire
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February 8th 2012 @ 6:25am
Dave said | February 8th 2012 @ 6:25am | Report comment
If that cup of beer was thrown at an English supporter, is that classed as a “racist” act? More of a stupid act if you ask me.
Are we saying the racism is getting worse at the cricket? Each year I will go to multiple days of international cricket, and I can’t say that apart from a very small minority that the crowds are racist.
In fact, for every one person that don’t go to the cricket because of racism, I bet there are more that are not going due to all the over-policing that seems to get worse every year.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not condone racism of any sort, but we do need to look at this objectively.
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February 8th 2012 @ 8:51am
dasilva said | February 8th 2012 @ 8:51am | Report comment
I think we need a bit more detail about that story to conclude racism.
There’s a tendency that someone who has been wrong by another person to assume it is due to racism. It could just mean the person was a drunk and targeted opposition supporters no matter what race they were.
It’s still an issue, disorderly behaviour by crowd but we can’t just assume racism
Nevertheless I do think it is an issue in cricket. I had attend the cricket and had someone saying to em with a fake asian accent “ni how”
I just responded “g’day mate” in an exaggerated aussie accent. They laughed it off and it diffuse the situation (being offended and angry is what you do to your self not what other people can do to you. Life’s too short to get pissed off with other people)
Still it’s a bit disappointing for someone to do that. It didn’t stop me from going to the cricket though.
February 8th 2012 @ 5:09pm
dasilva said | February 8th 2012 @ 5:09pm | Report comment
I’ll just add , that the “racist” incident occurred outside the stadium when I was walking towards the Adelaide Oval.
I’m not going to blame Cricket Australia for that.
I would only blame them, if it happen during the cricket match and I report it and nothing happen.
So far, I haven’t heard any situation where that has happen.
February 8th 2012 @ 6:57am
Peter Young said | February 8th 2012 @ 6:57am | Report comment
There is no place for racism in Australia, including at major sporting events. The ICC and Cricket Australia have an anti racism policy and people who breach face penalties which include banning from venues for life. It’s detail is published as part of the conditions of entry and on the main scoreboard screens during play. Venues also publish a venue phone number fans in the stand can ring or text – as discretely as they like – to make complaints to which venue staff will attend. This can be used for any form of misbehaviour, not just racism. Venue staff and also state police assigned to games do monitor behaviour throughout the ground but it is, of course, not possible to watch every single attendee for every single comment. Ultimately, racism is an issue for our whole society and we must strive across the whole community to embrace diversity, in keeping with the Harmony Day objectives that you note we were promoting that night. Chiz, Peter Young, Cricket Australia
February 8th 2012 @ 8:06am
Tristan Rayner said | February 8th 2012 @ 8:06am | Report comment
A note to Roarers – this is confirmed as being Cricket Australia’s Peter Young. Great to see a response from CA to Athas’ concerns.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:16am
Will Sinclair said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:16am | Report comment
Yep – good to hear from Peter.
When reading the article, I thought this opening was particularly harsh on Cricket Australia:
“Cricket Australia has a problem. Like a scab that doesn’t heal in the tropics, they have allowed racism to fester at Australian cricket grounds.”
I’m not sure that’s fair comment, at all.
February 13th 2012 @ 12:20am
aussiepolliessport said | February 13th 2012 @ 12:20am | Report comment
Indeed, Cricket Australia cannot be everywhere within the stadium nor can they or should they do or be able to do the policing of such things.
As long as the appropriate policies and procedures are in place and followed when such behaviour is brought to the attention of Cricket Australia then I see little more that they can do other than take very strong action.
Ultimately the problem lies within broader society outside of cricket and should be highlighted and dealt with by all sectors in society so then hopefully Cricket Australia do not have to deal with it in the future.
To blame Cricket Australia is very poor form. Fair enough if comments reported to them are not dealt with in a satisfactory manner though.
February 8th 2012 @ 7:37am
Redb said | February 8th 2012 @ 7:37am | Report comment
I was at the MCG on Sunday for the ODI between Australia & India and didn’t see any racism.
February 8th 2012 @ 8:18am
JAJI said | February 8th 2012 @ 8:18am | Report comment
Thats because apart from a majority of Indian supporters there was hardly anyone else at the game
February 8th 2012 @ 8:24am
Redb said | February 8th 2012 @ 8:24am | Report comment
Just over 29,000 in fact.
I was in an area of Australian and Indian fans – no racism.
March 1st 2012 @ 5:49pm
Tyronne said | March 1st 2012 @ 5:49pm | Report comment
I would love to hear a sub-cont..commentater.I do not think they are allowed to sit with the Aussies….
March 9th 2012 @ 5:39am
Tyronne said | March 9th 2012 @ 5:39am | Report comment
WILL THERE EVER BE A AUSTRALIAN BORN,,,ASIAN IN THE AUSTRALIAN CRICKET TEAM?????????
February 8th 2012 @ 9:20am
wolfie said | February 8th 2012 @ 9:20am | Report comment
Perhaps some of the racism was verbal, open your ears next time and you might recognise it.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:51am
Redb said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Very mature.
February 8th 2012 @ 1:49pm
wolfie said | February 8th 2012 @ 1:49pm | Report comment
So in the face of racism accusations the “see no evil, hear no evil” angle is the height of maturity.
Just cause you deem something not to be racist doesn’t mean that others feel the same.
Incidents happend at the match you attended which people felt to be racist, as evidenced by the radio announcer and the people that called him up.
Doesn’t it concern you in the slightest that attendees to the cricket felt racially abused?
February 8th 2012 @ 2:57pm
Redb said | February 8th 2012 @ 2:57pm | Report comment
Read the article it is talking about the game on Friday. I offered an experience from Sunday. You don’t like it, tough.
February 8th 2012 @ 3:10pm
wolfie said | February 8th 2012 @ 3:10pm | Report comment
See no evil, hear no evil – carry on.
Give us some advice to all the other punters that offered their experience last Friday on that radio show.
Sincerely hope it’s more than “tough”.
February 8th 2012 @ 3:46pm
dasilva said | February 8th 2012 @ 3:46pm | Report comment
In the end you can’t control the behaviour of all the spectators in the game. There will always be bad apples in the crowd
The issue for Cricket Australia is whether spectator who behave poorly and racially abused other members of the crowd. Do they get evicted for their poor behaviour? Are there opportunities for well-behaved spectators for them to report poor behaviour? Do security act on these reports in a timely matter?
This is how we should judge cricket australia on this matter in how they deal with these situation arrives
If those people who were racially abused didn’t knew that they could report poor behaviour (via the SMS text) then Cricket Australia are at fault for not promoting “venue phone number fans in the stand can ring or text – as discretely as they like – to make complaints to which venue staff will attend.”
IF they did report it and nothing was done than Cricket Australia is culpable for not dealing with poor behaviour from crowd
If people have alternative suggestion in how to ensure that people behave poorly can get evicted in a timely matter, then they should suggest it.
However articles that shows example of poor crowd behaviour doesn’t really mean that Cricket Australia is at fault for not controlling racial abuse. That’s the standard that really no large sporting event can meet
What happen if all the complaint about racial abuse were dealt in a timely matter and all those people were evicted? would Cricket Australia be at fault there?
Well we don’t know if that’s the case or not because this article isn’t addressing that issue. It’s just bringing up examples which doesn’t prove anything as we know that racism exist in society.
February 8th 2012 @ 3:53pm
Redb said | February 8th 2012 @ 3:53pm | Report comment
The poor behavior SMS number is displayed in large writing at the bottom of the MCG scoreboard and often shown before and during the match on the scoreboard itself.
Anyone reported would be questioned/evicted by MCG security not CA.
February 8th 2012 @ 5:05pm
dasilva said | February 8th 2012 @ 5:05pm | Report comment
Redb
Yeah
Which sort of shows the pointlessness of this article.
This article at best shows that racist exist and sometimes they attend the cricket.
This is out of the control of the administrators and don’t mean anything about the performance of the administrators. An organisation is not culpable for racism within its crowd, it is culpable in how it deals with racism
The administrators can’t control how the fan behave. They can only control how they deal with trouble makers and to create an environment to prevent racist behaviour. This article doesn’t focus or criticise the measures, policies of how Cricket Australia and the venues deal with racist behaviour. It just states that racist behaviour happens at the cricket, which really doesn’t mean anything when assessing their performance.
From my opinion they do a pretty decent job at that and nothing in this article change that perception as there seems to be pretty comprehensive security in dealing with issues like this.
The SMS number in reporting poor crowd behaviour seems prettry comprehensive as I haven’t seen that in any other sporting event. I haven’t heard stories of the security being slowed to act on poor crowd behaviour (in fact I heard the exact opposite), I know that they have plain clothe security people spying on the crowd and jumping on any racial tauints from the crowd.
Short of banning alcohol, I can’t really see any drastic improvements in preventing poor crowd behaviour can be made.
February 8th 2012 @ 8:25am
agga78 said | February 8th 2012 @ 8:25am | Report comment
LOL listening to Matt Thompson on SEN, he is a wannabe shock Jock who blows everything up to be a major issues when it cleary is not an issue, im not saying this did not happen at the cricket I was not there but the source you are listening too is very poor indeed.
The next day Matt Thompson went on for an hours about one scarve at the Melbourne Derby because it said f- off heart, he made it out that this was disgraceful, un-Australian, would not get it at the AFL etc, Matt Thompson has agenda’s against certain games and it was no suprise that he said he was leaving SEN to go to AFL media at the end of that show.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:06am
Australian Rules said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:06am | Report comment
I have to agree with this.
I wasn’t at the cricket so I cannot comment on what specifically went on in certain sections of the crowds. If racist comments were made then that is abhorrent and has no place in our society. They should be banned.
However…I also know of Matt Thompson and his ‘work’ on SEN rdaio in Melb. He alleges that the crowd was racist…his main evidence? Someone threw a beer cup. Quick call the United Nations.
Any time I’ve been in Melb and listended to Matt Thompson all I hear is hyperbole, exaggeration and ‘muck raking’. He is a very young radio reporter who has never had a sense of what is a story and what is not. He reports it all with squeaky, enthusiastic scandal. I would take a Sahara desert’s worth of salt, with any exclusive Matt Thompson was ‘reporting’.
February 8th 2012 @ 12:28pm
Athas Zafiris said | February 8th 2012 @ 12:28pm | Report comment
agga78 – interesting to note that the Herald Sun’s senior football writer David Davutovic is not a fan of the scarf either
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/victory-needs-some-speed-from-coach-jim-magilton/story-e6frf9if-1226263606439
February 9th 2012 @ 9:34am
Peter Care said | February 9th 2012 @ 9:34am | Report comment
I’m sorry Athas, wasn’t it you that wrote a previous article about the over officious policing of the F bomb at a-league matches?
For all the people that are upset about the scarf, I say “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” i.e if that word has never passed your lips or you have never written it then you have a point.
February 9th 2012 @ 12:04pm
Athas Zafiris said | February 9th 2012 @ 12:04pm | Report comment
Peter Care – Please Note: my name is not David Dautovic.
I was just pointing out to Agga 78 that there were people in the football media that also were not happy with it.
As for my opinion on the scarf issue – I really could not give a f***
February 8th 2012 @ 9:38am
Don Corleone said | February 8th 2012 @ 9:38am | Report comment
Sorry, I haven’t been provided a single skerrick of evidence to support the claim that Australian cricket fans have been racist.
I saw and heard with my own eyes a couple of hundred Sri Lankan fans sing ‘Siddle is a wanker’ at the SCG at an ODI back in November 2010.
February 8th 2012 @ 11:45am
Axelv said | February 8th 2012 @ 11:45am | Report comment
“I saw and heard with my own eyes a couple of hundred Sri Lankan fans sing ‘Siddle is a wanker’ at the SCG at an ODI back in November 2010.”
And here you are saying that without providing a single skerrick of evidence to support your claim!
Is your claim a fabrication?
February 8th 2012 @ 2:35pm
BigAl said | February 8th 2012 @ 2:35pm | Report comment
Well ! . . . I wonder where they learned that chant from?
February 8th 2012 @ 10:14pm
Tyronne Neydorff said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:14pm | Report comment
weldone. Very clever..me to wonder from where they learnt it FROM
February 8th 2012 @ 10:00am
Coxinator said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:00am | Report comment
While this is saddening, it’s still far from an entire stand making monkey chants at Andrew Symonds. They were never punished as I recall, so hardly an example has been set in international cricket.
February 8th 2012 @ 11:43am
Axelv said | February 8th 2012 @ 11:43am | Report comment
If they do something wrong and get away with it, therefore we should too?
February 8th 2012 @ 4:05pm
jameswm said | February 8th 2012 @ 4:05pm | Report comment
No Axel – but don’t be one of the self-flagellants who thinks that Australia is worse than everywhere else. It isn’t true.
February 8th 2012 @ 3:43pm
amazonfan said | February 8th 2012 @ 3:43pm | Report comment
So? Just because they did something worse doesn’t justify us doing it.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:14am
Will Sinclair said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:14am | Report comment
For what it’s worth, I’ve been attending cricket matches in Sydney – in all forms – for 20 years + and have never heard or seen a single incident of racism.
Which is not to say that it doesn’t happen, but maybe it’s not as big a problem as this piece indicates?
February 8th 2012 @ 10:18am
smfc1874 said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:18am | Report comment
There is still a level of racism in some circumstances – but I think its more of an issue of some members of Australian crowds, insulting and engaging in anti-social behavior against people of the “other” team rather than to do with race. I do remember going to an Australia v NZ one-dayer a few years back with a few mates, a couple of us being Kiwi’s were prepared to cope some critizism for wearing blacks shirts and supporting the opposition, which would have been fine, however midway through the afternoon some drunk, Australian supporter thought it would be funny to piss on my mate just because he was wearing the colours of the opposition team. This was pretty horrible behavour but nothing to do with race, more to do with a drunk idiot, who was promptly thrown out of the ground by security. Issues like this seem to happen at the shorter forms of the game, but not at test level.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:18am
Brian said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:18am | Report comment
The issue is part of CA new marketing policy. Have a look at all the ads advertising the BBL or the ODI series. What is most striking is that no players are involved. CA want you to come but not to see the players. For me its a stark contrast with other sports where Chris Judd or Rafael Nadal feature prominently in the advertising.
The end result of course is that some people invariably come to drink in the sun more than anything else. The racism which is not too bad at present is an unfortunate by-product.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:41am
Chris said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:41am | Report comment
When you get two countries playing, there is always the chance that insults and banter between sections of the crowd and between the crowd and players are delivered and/or received as racist. It’s not much of a stretch to take the view that most of the Barmy Army’s songs are racist towards Australians.
While I don’t doubt there are some racists in the crowd at an international cricket match, I suspect it’s not nearly as big a problem as is made out by this author. Unfortunately all it takes is a few articles like this and CA gets trapped into having to take a public stand on the issue. Which is symbolic in a positive way I guess…