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FORMER England cricketer Monty Panesar has described today’s ECB report on racism in the game as “shocking”. - London TV

FORMER England cricketer Monty Panesar has described today’s ECB report on racism in the game as “shocking”.

by London-TV in Business

FORMER England cricketer Monty Panesar has described today’s ECB report on racism in the game as “shocking”.

He told GB News: “I was obviously very lucky, with the right people at the right time, but then my case probably doesn’t really highlight what other British Asian people, and obviously people from other ethnic minorities, ace in cricket.

“Unfortunately, this is a really big, shocking report. The ECB need to get their act together and as an organisation need to do more especially at state school level.”

In a discussion with Mark Longhurst and Pip Tomson, he continued: “There are a lot of cricketers out there who don’t get the same opportunity as I did or maybe are not as talented or natural cricketers, and they’re the ones where I think we’ve got to somehow work a way of keeping them in the game or make them feel they’re welcome to play cricket and become a professional cricketer if they want to.

“There is a lot of work to be done by the ECB, not to just have exceptional talent from the British, Asian or the ethnic minorities to play professional cricket, but trying to get some of the less gifted cricketers to see if they can become professional cricketers.

“So, over the next 12 months, I think the ECB have got to spend at least £4 million to £5 million pounds to develop programmes to make it much easier for any state school cricketers, boy or girl, to come through the system .

“But also, they need to make it accessible to these sorts of social classes, because cricket needs to be inclusive. It can’t just be an upper class sport and the opportunity is given to them – it’s got to be given to everyone.”

He also said more need to be done to convince women to take up the sport: “That’s one of the areas where they need to get more opportunities, equal opportunities for women and men, that should be definitely something that the ECB should look into doing and also pay as well.

“The pay gap is massive between men’s and women’s sport. So I think women should get closer to that – equal pay and equal opportunities.”