MELBOURNE, (Reuters) – West Indies all-rounder Stafanie Taylor said she experienced racism in Australia nearly a decade ago, and is pleased with how players in the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) have supported the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement by taking a knee this season.
The gesture has become widespread among athletes to protest racism especially after the death in the United States of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody earlier this year.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Taylor told how she and some of her West Indies team mates experienced racism during a tour of Australia some 10 years ago.
“As a world, we need to be better than that,” wrote the 29-year-old in the Australian newspaper.
“It has been so powerful for me watching as the Black Lives Matter movement has swept across the world, especially after the death of George Floyd.”
Taylor had initially asked her Adelaide Strikers captain Suzie Bates to take a knee just in the first-round matches of the ongoing WBBL, but the skipper insisted on doing so throughout the tournament.
“We have been taking a knee throughout the whole tournament and I am so pleased with the support I got from my teammates, it was really fantastic,” the Jamaican wrote.
“Sometimes I even forget and (teammate) Megan Schutt will say to me: ‘Stafanie, don’t forget we’ve got to take a knee’.”
She also thanked Sydney Thunder and Hobart Hurricanes for making a statement and praised individual players from several other teams for doing the gesture.
“While I wish that all players from all eight teams competing in the WBBL this year were taking a knee, BLM is a global movement and I’m proud that cricket is helping to stamp out racism on and off the field,” she said.
