Cricket is a kind of sport where everyone forgets about religion, caste, etc, and comes together. Rather not just cricket every sport brings smiles to faces no one separates anyone from each other.
Racism, body shaming, and stereotyping are some of the factors that used to happen in sports in the early days but now it has stopped and everyone plays like a team.
Kagiso Rabada speaks about being the only Black African player
South Africa was overshadowed by cricket in the 1980s but later they were included in cricket after some time and then they were tagged as full-time members of world cricket, all since then players like Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Dale Steyn, AB De Villers became legends and mapped South Africa on world cricket map, but everyone stereotyped that African continent are negros and they are considered as a backward class and mostly people us to neglect but the narrative was very negative just because people use to speak like this and so everyone believed that.
South Africa’s speedster Kagiso Rabada clarifies about being the only black African in the whole team. If any person is teased or trolled for being black it hits them a lot and they get mentally unstable if anyone steps into an athlete or any sport it hurts the most they too should be treated as one of them only. If we look at the West Indies team all players are black too but there was a time were they use to dominate world cricket, players like Sir Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Gary Sobers, Andy Roberts, and many more were like giants of cricket but no one treated them as other caste nor anyone dared to tease them. Kagiso Rabada said:
“I didn’t put any more pressure on me at all. It would be such a heavy thought, during a World Cup, thinking about yourself being the only black player in a team. That seems like torture for me. That just takes away from focus.”
“I’m a black player, yes. If I don’t feel like I should have been there on merit and if people don’t feel that way, then it’s fine. I’m not invincible. I can be dropped as well but I believe in myself.”
South Africa played their first-ever final of the ICC tournament but unfortunately, they lost in the end they played a good brand of cricket and they always fight in ICC tournaments earlier they used to be seen as watchdogs but now they are considered as one of the contenders of lifting the World Cup. South Africa has registered some incredible records, in 2023 they registered the highest score in the World Cup 423 against Sri Lanka.
Further Kagiso Rabada also mentioned how media reports are portrayed about South African players which affects their mental psychology. Kagiso Rabada said:
“These are certain challenges [we face] and you ask a valid question because you wonder how players must have felt in the past, how players in the future might feel. And these are things we need to address. For me, it was just about winning [the World Cup]. But for other players, you never know how it feels. And also, what the media has to say about the situation can mess up the players’ psychology or psyche.”
“You ask yourself, what are some of these factors that might make a player feel that way [that they are only included because of their color], and it’s factors such as we lost because of transformation or because we had to include players of color or Black Africans. And that always happens in World Cups. When we’re winning series and we’re winning or losing other games, it’s not so much of an issue, so that’s where it might be a bit inconsistent.”
South Africa will be one of the strongest teams in upcoming years just because the country faces problems due to poverty and many such reasons but in sports, they will overcome this.