W hen Indian-born Muslim cricketer Nasser Hussain captained the England team, no one could have imagined that after nearly two decades, the game would be facing a storm of this magnitude and compel the wider society to confront one of the most sensitive issues: racism. Over the years, England's cricketers of South Asian origin, like Monty Panesar, Ravi Bopara, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, who have all shown their on-pitch talents, never talked about racism. But since cricketer Azeem Rafiq's revelation about his sufferings and pain, the issue of racism has now become a subject of much bigger debate around race relations, Islamophobia and division in Britain today. The racial abuses he was subjected to include repeatedly being called a "pa*i," and referred to by the name "Kevin," a dehumanising moniker for black and Asian players. The racism scandal that engulfed the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has finally made them acknowledge that racism and discrimi...

The ongoing Tokyo Olympics is the latest sporting event where taking the knee by players has made its way in. Athletes at these Games are allowed to protest after the International Olympic Committee relaxed Rule 50, which previously forbade athletes to make any kind of “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” It follows the Euro 2020 where knee taking by English footballers stirred a political debate, but eventually won over the argument against racial injustices. These are powerful imprints of the social movement Black Lives Matter. No wonder the editors of Oxford Dictionary, in 2017, added the changed meaning of the word ‘woke’ to be awake to sensitive social issues, such as racism from its traditional usage as past participle of ‘’wake’’. It became popular as the anti-racism movement Black Lives Matter (BLM) started using hashtag #StayWoke on social media. But many others, particularly the conservatives, deride the te...

Imagine a scenario where players are being booed for making gestures that contain a political statement, but when play resumes and the players clinch stunning successes, spectators in the same gallery go wild in celebrations. This is what we have been witnessing in the United Kingdom for quite some time, as footballers (taking the cue from sportspeople in the United States) started "taking a knee" since last year to highlight racial injustices and show support to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Frustrated in seeing such contradictory behaviour from spectators, a prominent British jurist, former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal, tweeted on June 13, the day England won against Croatia in Euro 2020, "Some booing the knee & then cheering Raheem Sterling for scoring the winner just after he got his Honour for his work on racism, is some level of hypocrisy." The issue of fighting racial injustice has drawn widespread support globally, but it has also given right-wi...