Pakistan's former wicketkeeping batter, Atiq uz Zaman, has talked about his experience of racism whilst playing cricket in England. He says racism in England Cricket is not only limited to Counties as Yorkshire or Lancashire but is deeply rooted entirely.
Opening up on the story, he said one of the development officers of Lancashire Country termed him a Samosa Seller. Further revealing, he says the people there used to term the Asian and Pakistani players as Bloody Asians or Paki and such racial terms were too common for them to hear.
Notably, Atiq is not the only cricketer to get subjugated to racism in England. In recent times, Azeem Rafiq has been courageous enough to drag Yorkshire in hot water revealing their treatment with the Asians, and Pakistanis. Since Azeem has taken the step, many cricketers are revealing their side of the story. Atiq has also praised Azeem's step.
He said although he did not report the case but a complaint to another officer regarding development's officer ill-treatment with him, but that was not considered as a complaint as he got turned down.
Here is what Atiq stated,
It was back in 2006, I was introduced to Bryson by another development officer for some coaching assignment. I got a stint and did a couple of sessions. For the third session, I couldn’t reach as my car was having some problem,”
“I texted Paul about the problem but he didn’t reply to my messages or my calls. The same evening, he phoned me and complained about my absence. When I reminded him that I had texted him, we exchanged some heated words before dropping the phone. After a few hours, he texted me again asking if I was that ‘samosa seller’ he saw at Edgbaston,”
“I was new to the society, I was still finding a job and wanted to settle, that’s why I refrained from taking it further as I believed that it could’ve jeopardized my career there,” the cricketer said.
“Also, it was normal for us to hear words like Paki or bloody Asians. It would hurt us then but we couldn’t do much about it,”