Pap Finn Keighl
International Regular
He is honest and only Indian cricketer to retire before decline. His game observations are better than most of the others. And not afraid of being disliked.
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Sunil Gavaskar vs Rahul Dravid
- Thread starter PlayerComparisons
- Start date
shortpitched713
Cricketer Of The Year
I see this was brought up early in the thread, but is Gavaskar still a racist?
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
If you are talking about the Carribean accent, then yes. Not sure if that's racist or just cringe. Else, tough to say really.
shortpitched713
Cricketer Of The Year
Nah, he literally called a West Indian
crowd "uncivilized barbarians" who "shrieked and howled" and "belonged to the jungles" in his autobiography. Don't know that he ever apologized for it either.
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, I read that part and found it very distasteful and opinionated, but not sure if it's racist. Like, that Kensington match crowd was quite wild so don't really know. It wasn't even he worst feud with a particular crowd, that happened in Kolkata.
shortpitched713
Cricketer Of The Year
He didn't use blatantly racist language to refer to a Kolkata crowd, as far as I'm aware.
That's what makes the fact that he did, in reference to the Kensington crowd, racist, imo.
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
Again, the issue is sensitive, but I don't think the language used was racist per say. Distasteful, definitely. Racist, not sure. Calling a crowd uncivilized is not necessarily racist imo, but very well could had been. Anyways, not really interested in defending Gavaskar on this matter.
kyear2
Hall of Fame Member
Ok, second time mentioning this......
Are you serious? Are you legitimately being serious right now? Not racist?
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
Again, I seriously don't know if those comments had any racist connotation or were just a man rumbling very distasteful rubbish about a crowd he didn't liked.
Arachnodouche
International Captain
Indians call each other monkeys too when they're exhibiting uncouth behavior. Where Gavaskar was ignorant and stupid was translating a harmless Indian colloquialism wholesale to the English language where it becomes loaded with meaning and historical context. Has he ever offered an apology for his words?
kyear2
Hall of Fame Member
Significant historical context for a player who spent significant time in England?
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
To big a prick to apologize
Significant context, but we Indians aren't whites and really have no reason to consider to not be on the same ground as blacks. We were the oppressed, not the oppressors.
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
Meh a lot of nuance in there and I wouldn’t say it’s that simple. Indians were often treated very differently than African populations in western context. That’s of course not taking into account history of India itself, where the people oppressor/oppressed narration kind of falls apart given all our history - especially if you take all Indians and group them into one and ignore all caste and other distinctions (which would be a nonsensical thing to do).
Gavaskar should have known better, given his education and background, especially in the context of how Africans are treated in India and by Indians in general - plus he has his own baggage from how he was treated in England - so I don't find any excuses credible.
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kyear2
Hall of Fame Member
Thank you.
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, let's leave it at that. Too nuanced an issue and it would had taken him nothing to apologize at least.
kyear2
Hall of Fame Member
It's not a nuanced issue there, and an apology wasn't issued because he didn't see one as warranted and he's been allowed to start a new career despite his being a racist piece of ****.
But I'll end this here.
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
Again, I apologize if my stance anyhow offended you; and I can definitely see how I would have not been much keen had such comments made by a white person about an Indian crowd. But here, saying a crowd belongs in jungle isn't really much uncommon. Distasteful, very much. I personally viewed the comment as something akin to Tony Greig's "grovel", a comment made my a commenter not exactly on derogatory terms, but with an ignorance towards it's reception. I am never going to defend that comment (as frankly, that's not very defendable) as nothing but uncultured. But I probably lacked the POV required to see it in the bigger picture. Again, I am sorry.