the big story

Indian cricket bats off racism allegations

The TLDR: Former West Indies skipper Darren Sammy says that his IPL teammates at Sunrisers Hyderabad often called him ‘kalu’—which he now realises is a racist slur. And Sammy wants them to explain themselves to him. The resulting controversy reveals just how tone-deaf Indian cricket is on skin colour—which in India is about a lot more than race.

What did Darren Sammy say?

On Monday, Sammy posted an Instagram video where he took his former Sunriser colleagues to task. He said that they “repeatedly called” him ‘kalu’, but Sammy did not realise the word was a slur in Hindi until he watched an episode of Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix series.

"But, every time I was called it—it was me and [Sri Lankan cricketer] Thisara Perera—there was always laughter in the moment. Me being a team man, I thought, hey, team-mates are happy, it must be something funny. You can understand my frustration and my anger when it was pointed out to me that it wasn't funny at all, it was degrading.”

Sammy ended his video demanding an explanation and apology from his former mates.

Have they responded?

Senior (and anonymous) members of the Sunrisers management claimed it was “probably the fans.” 

Former Sunriser player T Suman said: “If at all (this has happened), it must have been said in jest.” 

The BCCI Treasurer said, “It's something that has happened long back and we don't know who is responsible. But BCCI always educates its players not to indulge in any racist exchanges.”

His former teammate Pervez Rasool said he never noticed any such thing, and Sammy seemed jovial during their time together.

That’s it?

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