Jonathan Agnew gets it right on Ollie Robinson, the ECB & racism in cricket
Finding measured and balanced views on anything in times like these is no easy matter and I’m not against taking sides. That said as an historian I’m interested in trying to look at things in context and understand them. Sometimes doing that may challenge my view of something but that is surely no bad thing.
Fortunately for Aggers comments are not open on the piece he has written on the BBC website (link below) or he would undoubtedly have been called ‘woke’ by one of the booing-brigade.
His central argument is the ECB who run English and Welsh cricket and who are not, shall we say, known for their revolutionary socialist approach to matters, messed up on their duty of care all around with the Ollie Robinson case. They should make as sure as they can be before someone gets to be an England player that there aren’t ‘issues’. If there are they can be addressed before, as it did this week at Lords, it becomes something that distracts from the cricket. It’s not a matter of policing cricket or individuals. It is a matter of protecting both from those who may have other agendas.
Agnew argues that suspending Robinson was the right thing to do while the ECB investigate and decide what to do next. Agnew is clear that doing something not just gestures needs to come. Issues of racism and discrimination in English cricket are not unknown. What is unknown so far is anything specifically being done to address them and move cricket to a more inclusive culture.
Of course Sport Secretary Oliver Dowden has criticised the ECB and has been backed by Boris Johnson whose own cricketing activities might make a good comedy sketch one day, so bad is he.
Johnson has nearly always got away with any manner of misdemeanours and worse and so doesn’t easily grasp the point that others shouldn’t. Most England cricketers still have (often minor) public school backgrounds (as does Agnew)and it was no surprise to find David Gower backing Dowden.
There is a further point that Agnew doesn’t touch on which has been widely made on social media.
Looked at globally cricket in the main is a very diverse but inclusive sport. Its more with teams like England and Australia that issues arise and that no doubt relates to an historic culture of racism and discrimination. Probably much of this was institutional rather than directly personal but not all of it.
Changing that takes time and it takes more than statements. A year on from the resurgence on a global scale of Black Lives Matter it’s time for the ECB to lay out their roadmap (apparently the 2021 word for plan) on what they are going to actually do.
As for Aggers I suspect the prospect of Lord Agnew of Legover has further receded.
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