In a series of tweets posted on Monday, former South African cricketer Alviro Petersen addressed how black players in the national team were treated and the alleged instructions given to them to ‘abuse’ black players from opposing teams.
In his tweets, Petersen alleges that at the start of his career he was told that black players from opposition teams were angry and arrogant people. He says that he would be to ‘go hard’ when playing against black players from opposition teams and that he would often be reminded thereof by his white colleagues during matches.
One tweet reads, “When I played, I can remember how black players were instructed to ‘abuse’ opposition black players and even got given the material to do so. I believe the oppressor and racists now call this ‘black on black violence’. They forget they created that and some fell for it,”.
Petersen claims that racism is “deeply rooted and well-disguised” in cricket and that open, honest and difficult discussions about racism in sport needs to happen.
He says he acknowledges white players who were victims of racial inequality too and emphasised that he is and always has been an advocate for merit selections.
Cricket SA has been under the spotlight for racial inequality after T20 Cricketer of the year, Lungi Ngidi, asked that the team support the Black Lives Matter movement.
