Chinaman, a racist term?
The terminology, in this case, is Chinaman', trending since Kuldeep Yadav made a splash by taking four wickets on his debut against Australia.
Andrew Wu, a Sydney Morning Herald cricket writer, has just sparked a furious debate by demanding that cricket remove what he described as a racially offensive term.
He raised a very valid question on Sunday, tweeting: “My challenge to cricket: get racially offensive terminology out of the game”.
The terminology, in this case, is ‘Chinaman’, trending since Kuldeep Yadav made a splash by taking four wickets on his debut against Australia in the ongoing Test at Dharamsala.
The origins of the term are interesting. It harks back to the first player of Chinese origin to play Test cricket. His name was Ellis Achong, and he played for the West Indies.
An article on Wisden said now that Chinaman has come up for discussion, it needs to be acted on. “ICC’s Anti-Racism Policy mentions the body’s continuing efforts to maintain the public image, popularity and integrity of cricket. In almost every conceivable way, give or take a break two-thirds into a day of a Test match for a cuppa, cricket has changed since the days of Gentlemen and Players and ‘Jolly good shot that, sir’. To be fixated with a random slur from 1933 does the sport no good,” the article said.