Andrew Strauss requests that players refrain from engaging in locker room banter. In November 2021, the Pakistan-born player informed the UK’s Department for Digital Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) about racist comments made by his teammates.
Former England captain Andrew Strauss has encouraged cricketers to avoid dressing room banter in order to avoid problems like Azeem Rafiq’s. In November 2021, he told the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media. Sport (DCMS) that racist words and acts by his fellow cricketers had driven him to consider suicide.
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The Pakistan-born cricketer asked his teammates to refrain from making racial remarks and harassing his teammates.
Strauss noted in his Marylebone Cricket Club Cowdrey Lecture on Wednesday at Lord’s that with players from different nations and races sharing a changing room, cricketers will have to be more cautious in what they say and do.
“As we move forward as a game with players of different genders, races, creeds, and beliefs coming together. The traditional macho, hierarchical, perhaps at times bordering on bullying dressing-room banter. Need to be softened to a culture that is more tolerant, understanding, welcoming, and embracing of difference. ” Strauss was quoted by Sky Sports as saying.
The South African-born player also emphasized the significance of the game’s ethos. He noted how the Azeem Rafiq scandal unfolded and ruined England cricket’s reputation. “Perhaps more crucially, the spirit of cricket must accompany modern players. I am speaking largely about the men’s game today into an area where neither the prying eyes of the media nor the passionate devotion of the spectators can penetrate; the changing room,” Strauss said.
“The events of the previous 18 months, whether from Yorkshire or elsewhere. Highlight that we have a lot of work to do in this area, but the spirit of cricket requires it. ” He continue.
Strauss, one of England’s most successful captains, also discussed the difference in playing Test cricket under Captain Ben Stokes, with Brendon McCullum as a coach, where England won nine of the ten Tests.
“The pairing of Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes in May of last year shook the game of Test cricket from its roots and raised some basic doubts about the centuries-old acknowledged facts of the Test format,” Strauss said.
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