Azeem Rafiq: Caller tells LBC he was afraid to get on a train after racist attack
17 November 2021, 09:43
Caller sets out shocking scale of racism he's faced in the UK
A caller has shared his experience of racism with Nick Ferrari both in cricket and in the wider world, calling it an "unspoken truth" and recounting how he was left afraid to get on a train.
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Thilina from Sri Lanka, who's played in a number of cricket leagues, said other players used the 'P' word and recounted how he was racially attacked on a train.
"I was living in east Croydon, ten minutes journey from Clapham Junction to East Croydon, I was standing," he told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast.
"A gentleman brushed past me, he thought I said something, I was just playing a game on my phone.
"Racially attacked, three people got off on the train station, called my mother the p-word three times."
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Thilina told Nick about the lasting impact the attack had on him, saying: "[The] court case went for six months, I was in therapy for almost a year, company-paid therapy. It does have a knock-on effect on you."
He said for the abusers it was just a "bunch of words" but it left him "paranoid" and afraid to go into a train station, saying he didn't "know what the next person's going to say".
When asked how he felt watching Azeem Rafiq give evidence yesterday, Thilina said: "For me, it was just 'finally, someone's speaking out'.
"But the hurt in his voice, the things he's gone though, no one should go through that.
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"How much he tolerated with a tragedy, a family tragedy, when you're playing for a club, when you're playing for a respectable club like that, you expect support.
"You expect some sort of people backing you."
He added that racism in cricket is "like an unspoken truth".
"We were told not to talk about it, we don't talk about it," he said.
Nick responded": "Well, we're talking about it now, and quite rightly."
