Ger Siggins
Watching the video of former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq’s statement at the British parliament this week unearthed “ugly memories” for Steve Lazars. The former North West Warriors all-rounder told the Sunday Independent, “It has brought back a lot of pain and I have suffered panic attacks.”
Lazars, 38, from Karnataka in India, says he experienced racism in more than a decade in Ireland as a professional player. He first came here in 2009 after representing his state at underage level and playing for the Rest of India against England under 19s.
He played with Ballymena and Lisburn, but later moved unions to Coleraine and Ardmore in Derry. In 2017, he was picked for the Warriors and scored a fine 62 against Leinster on the day Ireland was elevated to Test status.
But Lazars — who also goes by Lazarus — says his name, accent and culture was made fun of, that he was given the wrong venues for training and someone once broke wind in his face.
Now married to Jenny, an Irishwoman, he still held a dream of playing for Ireland and complained to the authorities about the behaviour.
But in a statement last week, the North West Cricket Union (NWCU) said: “A complaint from Mr Lazars was sent to the NWCU in May 2018. Mr Lazars also sent an email to Cricket Ireland.
“The NWCU immediately sought support from Cricket Ireland in 2018 to properly work through the allegations, and consequently a thorough investigation was undertaken at the time led by Barry Keane, chair of the Cricket Ireland Disciplinary Committee, supported by an independent HR consultancy. No basis to the allegations were found from this investigation.
“Mr Lazars then launched legal proceedings to an Industrial Tribunal against NWCU and Cricket Ireland — the matter was then referred to mediation in the first instance. Before the allegations received a full hearing or mediation occurred, we were informed Mr Lazars had withdrawn the claim.”
Lazars says: “By this time my mental health was at an all-time low and I had contemplated ending my life several times. I was referred to a GP and had eight months of counselling. I tried to fight until the end but the strain and pressure on our marriage almost destroyed our relationship. This is when my wife and I decided to give up on the case.
“Giving up my case was the most painful experience in my life! I felt like a failure, alone and a reject just like Azeem felt. At least Azeem had his family near him but I had nobody but a few friends. Some friends did not believe racism existed in Northern Ireland, which was shocking.”
The Azeem case brought it all back for him: “The last two weeks have been extremely difficult to cope watching what Azeem went through, especially the harassment and isolation he had to face. It has brought back a lot of pain and I have suffered panic attacks. I am glad that Azeem has finally received long deserved justice and the ugly truth of racism in the cricketing ranks was exposed. I can empathise on every level of his experience.”
The racial complexion of cricket here has seen a huge overhaul at all levels in the past decade and Cricket Ireland has acknowledged work has to be done, sending staff for Unconscious Bias Training this year and developing equality, diversity and inclusion policies.
In the past, non-white players were occasionally abused by spectators. Alf Masood, a Pakistani who played for Ireland, and West Indian Carlos Brathwaite suffered serious racial slurs during Irish Senior Cup finals. Barbadian Hendy Wallace had bananas thrown at him at a club game in the north-west. And current Ireland all-rounder Simi Singh was called “Slumdog” in reference to his Indian heritage.
Bobby Rao, who came here from India 40 years ago — and played six times for Ireland, was targeted with graffiti saying, ‘Black Bob Go Home’.
“I regularly heard comments about my colour,” he said. “It is not that everyone is racist. Perhaps 95pc are not. But the 5pc who are can make your life hell.”
Cricket Leinster, where more than 70pc of adult players were born outside Ireland — mostly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — has embraced the new reality. A CL official explained: “We decided to get on the front foot to tackle the issue of racism and there has been very few incidents.
"We have made significant steps to rebalance all our committees to reflect the make-up of our members — the new disciplinary and schools committees are very different for example. It is a massive education process for all of us.”
Meanwhile, Cricket Ireland too may look to Asia for a successor to Graham Ford, who stepped down last week. Ford’s tenure will be remembered for the repair job he did on a creaking side and ushering a cluster of youngsters into the side. He leaves the sport in a better place than he found it, a mark of true success.
It would be unjust if the external report laid blame for the T20 World Cup failings at his feet but the parameters set for that review already cast doubt over its usefulness. The report will be handed to the High Performance Committee — who are as much in the frame as the former coach — before it is passed to the board.