Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article may contain images of people who have died.

Many unexpected friendships are struck up at cricket clubs. A primary school vice-principal and an apprentice sparky can joke around like old friends, while a warehouse worker offers advice to an accountant. After arriving late, the solicitor is the subject of gentle derision for the cardinal sin of appearing at training in his jacket and tie.

“There wasn’t a game where I wasn’t called a nigger or a boong or a coon.”

John McGuire, Aboriginal former cricketer.

A tagline of Cricket Australia is that cricket is a “Sport For All”, but the experiences of some tell a different story.

Exclusive by nature

The modern pursuit of inclusion in cricket stands in stark contrast to its origins. The game was born in England as a pastime for the gentry, who could pursue it at their leisure while peasants pushed ploughs with furrowed brows. Its rules began to be formalised in the middle of the 18^th century, more than 50 years before the British Empire abolished the use of slavery in its colonies.

The Black Lives Matter movement’s rise into prominence in 2020 saw many involved with the game in its country of origin bring their experiences of racism to the fore. Former national under-19 captain Azeem Rafiq, born in Pakistan and of Muslim faith, spoke of having red wine poured down his throat in change rooms and claimed racism was the defining reason behind his premature retirement. Ebony Rainford-Brent, England’s first black female bowler, said racist comments from both teammates and opposition were a “constant” in her playing days.

The English Cricket Board signalled their intent to investigate the issue in November 2020 and convened the Independent Commission for Equality in Cricket in March 2021 to forensically examine the prevalence of discrimination across all levels of the game.

The 317-page ICEC report, published in June, highlighted and decried the widespread existence of racism within cricket, emphasising its existence was structural and deep-rooted rather than being the work of a few “bad apples”. It documented that more than 80 per cent of South Asian and 75 per cent of black respondents had experienced racism in the course of their involvement with the game while concluding the problem was causing a considerable talent drain.

Tim Wigmore, The Telegraph’s deputy cricket correspondent and the author of best-selling cricket books Criconomics and Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, says the manner in which review was set up ensured the unvarnished truth, no matter how inconvenient or uncomfortable, would be on display.

“The findings were both pretty predictable, given what we’ve seen over the last couple of years, and shocking at the same time,” he says.

“People can’t bury their heads in the sand anymore.”

“All I ever wanted was one chance”

Despite its status as a product of English colonialism, many First Nations people quickly took to cricket once it arrived on their shores. The first Australian team to travel overseas to play the game was comprised entirely of Aboriginal men, who more than held their own against their more experienced English opponents. WA’s fledgling cricket scene was dominated by a team of Aboriginal men from the New Norcia mission, located 120km north of Perth.

Historian Bob Reece claims in his book about the New Norcia cricket team, The Invincibles, that the improving standards they drove played a critical role in the formation of the Western Australian Cricket Association in 1885. The reasons why remain a source of debate, but they were not invited to join the organisation. Whether intentional or otherwise, the message that Aboriginal people did not belong in the game had been sent and received.

Ross Chadwick, an anthropologist who wrote his PhD thesis on the experiences of Aboriginal people in WA cricket, says there are almost no records of Aboriginal cricket participation after the New Norcia team until the last few decades of the 20^th century.

“The game was run by the elite of Western Australian society. If you think about it as a class system, they were at the upper end of that class system, and Aboriginal people were fitting in at various levels, but generally towards the very bottom, if you put it into that crude social hierarchy,” he says.

In the 1970s, prodigiously talented Noongar man John McGuire broke the mould. Like the Aboriginal men who came before him, he did not just play the game, he dominated it.

His 10,004 runs in Perth grade cricket—the competition directly under state level—is the second-highest aggregate in the competition’s history. An opening batter who plundered bowling attacks for fun, he powered the Mount Lawley Cricket Club’s transformation from a laughing stock into a four-time premiership-winning powerhouse in the 1980s.

Despite his achievements, John’s story is defined by what he did not do, rather than what he did. He was part of the state squad for two seasons and he captained an Aboriginal tour to England in 1988, but he never played for WA in a proper match. Records are muddled and contested, but it is believed he is the only player to score more than 7,000 Perth grade cricket runs without being capped at state level.

He holds no doubts his exclusion from the side was racially motivated, saying sympathetic former teammates still tell him as such.

“The reasons behind it are disgraceful, despicable,” he says. “I don’t expect an apology or particularly want an apology, but to play for my state would’ve been the greatest thrill of my life.”

When asked if he can recall one lightbulb moment when he knew he would not achieve his dream, McGuire produces two. One is his claim he was retired inside the opening hour of a state trial game after racing to 57 so that he could not post a big score to bolster his prospects. The other is his recollection of a conversation with the state’s chairman of selectors telling him he was one big score away from cracking the team, only to still be on the outside looking in after making a massive 190 not out.

McGuire says the messages sent to Aboriginal people saying they do not belong in the game are constant but subtle. As a youngster falling in love with the game, his cricketing hero was not an Australian player because none of them looked like he did. He latched onto the great West Indian batter Clive Lloyd who, like him, was black, left-handed, and wore glasses.

“You can’t be what you can’t see,” he says

Despite constant rejection, McGuire tried to be the role model he never had. He says he never gave up on his goal because he did not want to confirm stereotypes about Aboriginal people lacking commitment.

“All I ever wanted was one chance,” he says. “I’m bitter, I’m angry, I’m annoyed. I’m not consumed by it, but I’ll always be disappointed.”

A 2018 study from Western Sydney University found cricket was on average the fourth-most expensive of the country’s 16 most-participated sports. Its barriers to entry are higher than any other sport at its level of popularity, requiring specialist equipment, green spaces, and plenty of time to play at a competitive level. The cost of a complete cricket kit can easily blow past the thousand-dollar mark on top of playing fees as high as $550 for the current Perth grade cricket season.

With shared kits now a thing of the past at many clubs, McGuire says the expectation players will provide their own equipment is another factor suppressing Aboriginal participation.

“If you don’t have that, it’s embarrassing, and you feel like you don’t fit in,” he says.

Beyond the boundary

McGuire made forays into administration with the WACA after his retirement, but found them largely unfruitful. He says he encountered apathetic attitudes towards addressing the structural factors inhibiting Aboriginal participation.

“I wasn’t terribly popular because I was talking from experience and highlighting the disparity, which cricket doesn’t like,” he says.

He has been involved with the Imparja Cup—CA’s flagship Aboriginal engagement practice, an annual tournament put on in Alice Springs between representative state teams—but he says it provided painful reminders of his own journey.

“You see superstars of the game, but they don’t go any further than representing their Aboriginal teams,” he says.

Chadwick agrees, saying he respects the competition but he fears it “… marginalises the group into a competition that doesn’t necessarily feed into the mainstream elite levels.”

Christina Matthews, the chief executive of the newly-rebranded WA Cricket, says she is saddened by McGuire’s experiences with with cricket and the door will always remain open for him to work with the organisation she leads.

“It’s a terrible indictment of the times that he was playing the game in,” she says.

Making cricket more equitable has been Matthews’ key focus since she became the second-ever woman to head up an Australian state cricket association in 2011. A pride flag now flies over the famous WACA scoreboard and she found herself at the centre of a media storm in 2017 when she said the game should look to drop gendered jargon.

“Our job is to make sure everyone who wants to be part of the game can be part of the game, and I will always drive that agenda for as long as I’m in the role,” she says.

WA Cricket established its Aboriginal Talent Academy earlier this year, an Australia-first initiative giving Aboriginal cricketers regular access to elite facilities and coaching. Matthews says it represents the organisation’s commitment to create a pathway for more Aboriginal cricketers to reach the top level.

“It’s about showing we’re a safe space, we want to help them get better at the game,” she says.

“I’m bitter, I’m angry, I’m annoyed. I’m not consumed by it, but I’ll always be disappointed.”

John McGuire on not playing for WA

McGuire remains unconvinced. He says the organisation still does not treat lagging Aboriginal engagement with cricket as a serious issue.

“They’ve got reconciliation action plans, and they’ve got on the letterheads and the emails they send ‘we acknowledge the Whadjuk Noongar people’, they wear an Indigenous [shirt]. It’s ticking a box, but there’s no substance around the baseless, vacuous bullshit that they preach,” he says.

Cricket’s resistance to change is proving hard to crack in some corners. Matthews has of late encountered increasingly stern opposition from both inside and outside WA Cricket —Tom Percy, a prominent Perth lawyer and one of several high-profile departures from the organisation’s board in recent years after serving the maximum term, said it should not be focusing on “raggle-taggle woke [causes]”.

“The majority of people want to see progression in these areas but unfortunately there are still those who, for reasons I don’t understand, find it challenging,” she says.

The next innings

A problem cannot be solved without first admitting it exists, which the ECB did when it formally responded to the ICEC report last month.

“Cricket should be a game for everyone, and we know that this has not always been the case … Black people were neglected. We are truly sorry for this,” chair Richard Thompson said.

The governing body fell short of a commitment to fully implement all the report’s recommendations but spruiked several shifts that are already underway, including the establishment of an independent discrimination regulator and additional funding for independent programs fostering participation from diverse groups.

His optimism is highly cautious and conditional, but Wigmore believes the fallout from the ICEC report has created English cricket’s greatest-ever opportunity to evolve into a more inclusive sport.

“If you look at the history of English cricket, there has actually been these moments in the past when issues have surfaced and there’s been people talking about it and then nothing’s really happened, but I don’t think there’s been such a systematic analysis, like what’s happening now, and such an awareness of the problems,” he says.

In their country’s unique climate, Aboriginal people knew the cleansing value of fire long before they picked up a cricket bat. The ICEC report set English cricket ablaze, but razed earth can create fertile conditions for new growth.

Chadwick says he would lend his support to an ICEC-style review into Australian cricket.

“Talking to people who have been in the system in previous eras would be quite instructive. I think there would be some insights into the way that the game was played and how the community more broadly saw participation,” he says.

Matthews says she cannot see any downsides to examining the game’s past to try and learn how to do better in the future.

“Whether the need is as great here as it was in England, I don’t know, but I would suspect that we hide it better,” she says.

McGuire is not currently involved with cricket at any level. He has been lost to the game.

“Hate’s a big word and it’s bordering on hate for cricket, I dislike cricket enormously. Love the game and I’d play the game again if I had the chance, but I dislike cricket in Australia,” he says.

His experiences have left him bruised, but McGuire is open about them in the hopes of inspiring positive change. Would a formal examination into cricket’s past in this country help it truly become a “Sport For All’? He believes it would be a necessary first step.

“I’d be front and centre, I’d be leading the charge,” he says.

“Let’s get it going!”