Ishant in trouble as Sammy seeks apology for racist nickname

TIL Desk Sports/ An old social media post by India pacer Ishant Sharma lent credence to former West Indies captain Darren Sammy’s allegation that a racist nickname was used to address him during his IPL stint with Sunrisers Hyderabad for which he is now demanding an apology.

The two-time T20 World Cup-winning West Indies captain, while commenting on the protests over African-American George Floyd’s death in the US, had spoken about being called ‘Kalu’ while he was in India. ‘Kalu’ is a racially derisive word, a jibe used to describe black people.

Sammy said having understood the meaning only now, he feels disappointed with his teammates, who addressed him by that nickname during his stint with SunRisers in 2013 and 2014.

One of them is likely to be Ishant, who had shared a group picture also featuring Sammy, on May 14, 2014, using the word ‘Kalu’ to identify the West Indian in it. The same year, even Sammy addressed himself as ‘Kalu’ in a social media post to offer birthday wishes to VVS Laxman — the SRH mentor at that time.