Former West Indies World T20 winning captain Darren Sammy seems to be in the middle of several racial accusations during the last couple of months. It all started with Sammy claiming to be a victim of racial abuse during his time in the Indian Premier League (IPL) with the Sunrisers Hyderabad team, wherein he was regularly being called ‘kalu’ (one with a dark skin tone) by few teammates. Sammy resurfaced recently with a new racism claim where he is of the opinion that the introduction of rules to limit the number of bouncers bowled in an over was to curb the success of West Indian pace attacks; in Sammy’s opinion – a ‘black team’
A Rule To Affect West Indian Bowlers
Basing his opinion after watching the documentary -‘Fire in Babylon’, Sammy feels that there never existed such a rule where there was a limit on number of bouncers been bowled. Pacer bowlers were using it as a lethal weapon to unsettle batsmen. As rightly showcased in the document where the likes of Jeff Thompson and Dennis Lillee were regulars at sending down body-line and bouncers to batsmen. However, things changed when the West Indian bowling attack, a dominant force during the 70s and 80s shook the opposition with their fierce yet disciplined bowling. But as Sammy expressed a rule came into effect with regards to bowling the number of bouncers and that crippled the success of the West Indian bowling attack.
Sammy’s Opinion Of The Rule
As posted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on its Twitter board, in the video Sammy can be seen saying, “I might be wrong but that’s how I see it. And the system should not allow that.” While talking about the rule on a show, Sammy explained – ‘rule start to come in and all these things start to come in and I take it, as I understand it, as this is just trying to limit the success of a black team could have.’
The Recent Racism Stir
There have been recent events of racial abuse around the globe that have unsettled the minority. Sammy highlighted the killing of black American national George Floyd under controversial circumstances. And he personally feels the issue of racism should be wiped off completely.